Wyvern
by ack1308
Summary: Taylor becomes a dragon. Hijinks ensue.
1. Chapter 1

**Wyvern**

* * *

 _1) This story is set in the Wormverse, which is owned by Wildbow. Thanks for letting me use it._

 _2) I will follow canon as closely as I can. If I find something that canon does not cover, then I will make stuff up. If canon then refutes me, then I will revise. Do not bother me with fanon; corrections require citations._

 _3) I will accept any legitimate criticism of my work. However, I reserve the right to ignore anyone who says "That's wrong" without showing how it is wrong, and suggesting how it can be made right. Posting negative reviews from an anonymous account is a good way to have said reviews deleted._

* * *

Part One: Inception

* * *

Flying.

I was flying, chill air flowing past stretched membranes. Gliding, then flapping again, arm and shoulder muscles aching.

 _I've never done this before. How do I know how to do it? Instinct?_

 _I hope it gets easier._

Below, buildings slid past. A city. The buildings were old, decrepit. Somehow, I knew that I was flying east. Toward the ocean that beckoned.

 _Why am I flying? How am I flying? Why are my arms wings now? Why am I flying toward the ocean?_

I stopped flapping for a few moments, allowed myself to glide once more. The wind drummed over the expanse of red-gold membrane that made up my wings, stretched between what had once been my fingers, my arms. Covered in fine scales, of the same colour as my wings, that winked back pinpoints of light in the weak January sunlight.

 _What happened?_

I didn't know. I wasn't sure of much. I had only been flying for a few minutes, but where I was flying _from_ was less certain than where I was flying _to._

Even who I was was uncertain. _My name …_

"Who am I?" I tried to ask out loud. My jaws opened; I got the impression of a _muzzle_ , and a croaking screech was all I heard. My tongue tasted the air, then ran over my teeth. Fangs, rather; all sharp, and far more than I'd had before …

 _How do I know that?_

I didn't know how I knew. I _knew_ I was human, despite my current shape. Which I knew little enough of, to be honest. _Arms turned into wings, check. Red-gold scales, check. Muzzle, check._

The buildings below were beginning to get uncomfortably close. I summoned up more energy, began flapping once more. A cross-wind buffeted me; I shifted to compensate, using my tail as balance and rudder both – _tail?_

A glance over my shoulder showed that yes, I had a tail. Looking down and under myself showed legs, folded up beneath me, covered in … something. Something that _stank._

I now knew why I was flying toward the ocean.

I needed water.

Lots of water.

* * *

The ocean was close, now. This was a good thing. My arms were tired. A joke surfaced in my mind – _I just flew in from New York, and boy my arms are tired –_ and it didn't seem so funny any more.

In the ocean ahead, in the bay – _Brockton Bay,_ I recalled. The city below was named for the bay – was a technological citadel, a home for the Protectorate. I blinked, eyelids moving in odd ways, as memories slotted into place. _That long street is called Lord Street. And that's the Boardwalk._

"Hey!"

I jolted in midair as the voice called out beside me; so focused had I been on my own emerging thoughts that I hadn't paid attention to my surroundings. My wings lost purchase on the air and I dropped a dozen feet before I corrected that. When I was gliding properly once more, I risked a glance sideways.

There, paralleling me, was a teenage girl; white-clad, wearing a tiara over her blonde hair. She was keeping pace with me fairly easily, almost lounging in the air. _Right. For_ _ **her**_ _it's easy._

A name surfaced in my memory. _Glory Girl._

 _Okay, so I can remember everyone_ _ **else's**_ _names. Why not mine?_

Forgetting my inability to vocalise, I tried to reply. "Uh, hi?"

What I _got_ was, "Ooo-ah?" In a sort of screechy, velociraptor sort of accent.

She frowned, marring that perfect brow. "Can't talk English?"

Closing my muzzle – not wanting her to think that I was about to try to attack her with my startlingly large collection of needle-sharp teeth – I nodded firmly, then shook my head.

"Yes, no?" She paused. "Can't talk, can understand?"

This time, I nodded vigorously.

" … ah, right. Okay, gotta ask you to land, so I can talk to you, okay?"

Looking down, I saw that we were crossing Lord Street. I angled my wings into a dive.

"Hey!" she shouted, catching up, even as I accelerated. "I'm talking to you, here!"

 _How do I say, "I know, but I've got to do this?" in dinosaur?_ It was a conundrum.

The cool waters, twinkling in the morning sunlight, were just ahead, coming up fast. I angled into a steeper dive.

"Hey!" yelled Glory Girl, reaching for me. I twitched my wing out of the way, rolling smoothly to the side. _Huh, something I can do._

She tried again; I barrel-rolled over her, and folded my wings back.

"You can't dodge forever -" she began, and then we hit the water.

* * *

Cool silence surrounded me. I spread my wings once more, letting myself float in the dimness. The dreadful things that had been clinging to my legs drifted off, floated away, as I kicked. I rolled my eyes upward, the nictitating membranes allowing me to see clearly, even under water. Glory Girl was gathering herself, flying upward, leaving just ripples behind.

I would have to follow soon; although at home in the water, I didn't have gills. So I folded my arms against my sides once more; my legs kicked and my tail waved, and I started toward the surface.

As I moved upward, so did more memories emerge from the darkness.

* * *

" _Hey, there she is."_

" _Fuck, I nearly didn't see her."_

" _Is it just me, or is she even skinnier than before Christmas?"_

" _Anyone else has a Christmas dinner – Hebert has a Christmas puke."_

" _She just has to look in the mirror."_

 _I ventured through the halls of Winslow, seeking my locker. I had imagined that they were letting up over November and December, but it must have been a ploy to get my guard down. They certainly weren't letting up now._

 _"She's so skinny that she has to run around in the shower to get wet."_

" _Mustn't do it all that much. I can smell her from here."_

" _Pee-yew! She probably took a puke just before she came in here."_

 _Maybe it was just the power of suggestion, but I could smell something horrible now, too. My cheeks burning from the hurtful words – I never_ _ **asked**_ _to be skinny – I hunched my shoulders and walked past them._

 _"So how old do you think she'll be before she actually grows breasts?"_

 _"I don't think there's that many years on the calendar."_

" _Well, it's not like she'll need them – she's too ugly and skinny to ever get a boyfriend."_

" _I hear that when she goes for a walk in the park, all the perverts button up their raincoats and go home."_

" _She'd need a boob job just to get the tits of a twelve year old."_

" _A twelve year old_ _ **boy**_ _."_

 _Trying not to listen, I reached my locker. A rancid smell emanated from it. I knew, with a sinking feeling, that they had done something to it. Something horrible. But, just as it's almost impossible to look away from a train wreck, I couldn't_ _ **not**_ _see what was inside the locker._

 _Bending over the lock, I entered the combination. Concentrating on ignoring the stink, I didn't look behind me._

 _That was my mistake._

* * *

I emerged from the water feeling much cleaner; my speed put me a good body-length above the water. This gave me the chance to get my wings into operation; spraying salt water in all directions, I rose into the air.

"Hey."

This time, I was less than surprised; Glory Girl hovered there, looking a little more bedraggled than before. Her skirt hung damply, her blonde hair was flat against her head, and she had lost the tiara. She also looked less than impressed.

I gave her my best inquiring look. She pointed toward the beach. "Land. Now."

She could fly faster than me; although I was much better under water, I didn't really want to tangle with her. Angling forward, I glided toward the beach. Fortunately, this being January, it was almost totally unpopulated; I came in for a neat landing on the hard wet sand just above where the tiny waves washed back and forth, and folded my wings. Due to my odd body shape, I had to lean forward a little, large clawed feet gripping the sand and my tail balancing from behind.

Glory Girl alighted beside me and looked at me, folding her arms. Carefully, I straightened up so that we were eye to eye. "Okay," she asked, "so who are you?"

Opening my mouth, I replied with an unintelligible screech.

Closing her eyes as if in pain, she rubbed her forehead. "You can't speak any English at all?"

That was easy; I shook my head.

"Uh … okay. You're human, yeah?"

After a moment of hesitation, I nodded.

"Are you a case fifty-three?"

I paused, blinking. Then I shrugged; with wings that could cover maybe twenty feet of span, and elbows that now almost touched the ground - _would_ touch the ground if I just leaned forward a bit more - I could really shrug.

"Okay, let's make that a maybe. Do you remember who you are?"

* * *

 _I was trapped inside the locker, unable to get out. Taunting laughter from outside, fading away. I couldn't get out. I struggled, screamed. I wasn't good enough to get out. Not strong enough._

" _Too skinny and ugly ..."_

 _There was a moment of discontinuity. Things began to change._

 _ **I**_ _began to change. I had strength now; I had muscle. I pushed at the door, ripped at it with the talons on my feet. It resisted. I opened my mouth, inhaled the noxious fumes._

 _What came from my mouth was more in the nature of an explosion than mere flame; perhaps I was igniting something in the mess beneath me. In any case, it wrecked the locker, bending the ones on either side to hell and gone. I sprawled on the floor, struggled to my feet. My clothes were gone; I wore a new form. Red-gold scales, arms lengthened into wings, a strong tail behind. I did not fit any more into any reasonable definition of 'human'. I had to get out of here. I had to clean the stink of Winslow from me._

 _I ran, scuttled, down the hallway. Burst out through the doors. Spread my wings for the very first time._

 _The ocean was east. I flew that way._

* * *

I reached out with a wingtip, and in the hard sand, I wrote, MY NAME IS TAYLOR HEBERT.

As she absorbed that, I added three more words.

PLEASE HELP ME.

* * *

End of Part One


	2. Chapter 2

**Wyvern**

* * *

Part Two: How to … Yeah, Not Going There

* * *

" _Hello, Dockworker's Association, Danny Hebert speaking."_

" _ **Mr Hebert, this is Carrie Blackwell, at Winslow High School."**_

 _Danny sat up at Blackwell's sharp tone. "Principal Blackwell. How can I help you?" He blinked, worry starting to spread through him. "Has something happened to Taylor?"_

" **Something** ** _has certainly happened. We're not sure what."_**

" _I … can you explain that?"_

" _ **It appears that your daughter came to school today, didn't go to class, set off a bomb in her locker, and decamped."**_

 _Of all the things that Danny had expected her to say, this was not one of them. "A … bomb?"_

" _ **Yes. Some sort of explosive or incendiary device. It destroyed her locker as well as the lockers on either side, and it damaged two more, as well as the floor and the ceiling, and it embedded the locker door in the wall opposite. It also set that part of the corridor on fire. Were you aware that she was planning this?"**_

" _I … no. No, I don't believe that Taylor did this. She … I don't even believe that she knows how to make a bomb, much less one that would destroy her locker. Are you sure someone else didn't do this to her?"_

" _ **Well, we have police and emergency services on site; the entire school has been evacuated and a complete roll call has been taken. Taylor is not here. The conclusion is inescapable."**_

" _I … could she have been caught … in the explosion?"_

" _ **No, the emergency services have been combing through the wreckage. There are no human remains, although there**_ **is** ** _evidence that she was also storing large amounts of toxic waste in her locker. Can you explain this?"_**

 _Danny's head was spinning. "I can't … I don't … " A blinking light distracted him. "I have a call on another line. It's probably the police. I have to take this."_

 _Without giving her a chance to demur, he pressed the button. "Dockworker's Association, Danny Hebert speaking."_

" _ **Mr Hebert, this is Sergeant Andrews, Brockton Bay PD. Do you know of your daughter's whereabouts at this moment?"**_

 _Danny put his head in his hands. This was going to be a very long day, and he had no idea what had happened to Taylor._

* * *

"Come on, it's just a little bit farther."

I let out a disapproving screech; flying was easy for _her._ She didn't have to actually claw at the air with wings that used to be her arms, for every foot of movement. For her, flying was a matter of saying fuck-you to physics and just coasting in whatever direction she wanted to go.

"Oh, don't be such a whiner." She was certainly picking up on my tones; I was pretty sure that she was joking with me in return. "Seriously, you're a dragon. How cool is that? Ames is gonna be _so_ jealous that I brought you home."

 _That_ made me blink, with that weird double-blink that my nictitating membranes gave me. _I'm a dragon? I thought I was a dinosaur. Some sort of pterodactyl velociraptor thing. How did I end up as a dragon?_

 _Okay, well, yeah, breathing fire to blow my locker door off_ _ **might**_ _have been a hint._

"Come on, pick those wings up. Don't slack off now. You're nearly there." She drifted past me again, waving her fingers at me teasingly. I flapped harder, swooped at her, snapped my jaws in her general direction without any real intent to actually get her. Laughing, she rolled out of the way. "Eek! Help! There's a dragon after me!"

The laser bolt smashed into my chest; I tumbled through the air, stunned. My thoughts were disorganised; I couldn't focus. Instinct took over, and I rolled; another blast ripped past my wingtip, the air crackling in its wake. All fatigue had left me, replaced by adrenaline; I pumped my wings, powered into a short dive, then flipped up and over in a hard loop. A sharp turn at the top of the loop, avoiding a third laser shot, then I was arrowing in on the flying form that had attacked me. Opening my jaws, I prepared to send an answering billow of flame -

"No! Don't! It's only Aunt Sarah!"

Glory Girl was in front of me, blocking my path. I angled hard, changing direction so that I didn't hit her, swallowing the flame back. _Friend. Do not attack._

The other one wasn't a friend, though. Just for a moment, we both hung in midair, me beating my wings, her just hovering there. A glow built up around her hands; I gathered flame in my gullet.

And then Glory Girl was between us again. She flung out her hands in both directions, and I felt her aura, calming me. "No, don't! Don't fight! Aunt Sarah, why did you attack her?"

"I … it was attacking you, dear," the flying woman responded. "Wait … ' _she'?"_

"Yes, 'she'," Glory Girl stated flatly. "She's not an 'it'. She's a 'person'. She's had her trigger event and changed. I think she might be a case fifty-three. She can't talk, but she can understand English, and write it."

There was a long, somewhat embarrassed pause; I let the anger ease out of my posture. My chest still hurt, though. The woman – Glory Girl's Aunt Sarah; I seemed to recall a Lady Photon, real name Sarah Pelham – addressed me directly. "I'm sorry. I reacted badly. I apologise."

I nodded, let out an acknowledging chirp. She eyed me, then glanced at Glory Girl. "What did she say?"

"I have no idea. You think I speak dragon?" Glory Girl shrugged. "But it sounded like, 'eh, what the hell' to me."

I nodded again; for someone who didn't speak dragon, she was doing all right so far.

"All right, so where are you taking her?"

"I, uh, thought I'd bring her home."

" _What?_ Honey, no. You shouldn't just bring home every strange cape that you meet."

"Aunt Sarah, _look_ at her. She's a _dragon._ How cool is that? Also, she needs help. She _asked_ me for help."

"So take her to the PRT or the Protectorate. Surely they're better set up for this sort of thing."

Glory Girl rolled her eyes. "They'd just poke her and prod her and make her join the Wards or something. Or put her in a Case Fifty-Three program. And she doesn't want that."

Which was true; when she had proposed the idea, I had made it quite clear that I was not in favour of it. I wasn't quite sure _why_ ; I just didn't want to go there. Besides, I didn't feel like being probed by anything, ever.

"So you're taking her home?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Okay; your mother will pitch a fit -"

"She'll get over it."

"And what about the rest of your family?"

Glory Girl shrugged. "Well, Dad might actually show some interest. And Ames will probably want to keep her forever. I mean, seriously, a _dragon."_

Lady Photon frowned. "And what about you? Why aren't you at school?"

"Heard about a weird thing flying over the city, went to investigate. Found Taylor here."

"Her name's Taylor? How do you know that?"

"Duh, she can write."

"Oh. Of course."

"Well, then. I'll see you two home. Then I'll call your mother. Because this is _not_ a surprise that Carol needs to find out about by walking in through the front door."

Impulsively, Glory Girl hugged her aunt. "You're the best!"

A grimace. "Still not entirely sure that this is the right course of action, but … okay, Taylor. Let's get you there, then see what needs to be done."

I answered with a screech, then stretched my wings out; as Glory Girl led off and Lady Photon paralleled me, I flew on.

* * *

The house was modest; a two-storey structure in suburbia. We came in for a landing outside the front door; I flapped my wings hard to kill forward momentum, then folded them close to my body. Lady Photon watched the manoeuvre with interest, then observed how I leaned forward and used my tail as a balance.

"Where were you going to have her sleep?" she asked, as Glory Girl opened the front door.

"Floor of my room," was the reply. "We can put down a mattress." Glory Girl went inside. "Dad! Visitors!"

"What if she doesn't sleep that way?" Lady Photon stepped back, allowing me first entry. "What if she hangs upside down, like a bat?"

"Then we set up something to let her do that. Hey, Dad, check it out. Look what I found."

Grinning, Glory Girl gestured to me as I entered the front door, just as her father – Flashbang – came in from the kitchen, with a sandwich in his hand. He stared; I tensed. But he didn't attack. He just … _looked_ at me.

"Okay," he ventured at last. "I give up. What is it?"

I blinked; that was the most apathetic reaction to my new appearance that I had encountered yet.

"For one thing, she's a she, not an it," Glory Girl explained patiently. "And for another thing, she's a person. Her name's Taylor. She needs help."

I chirped in agreement, nodding my head.

"As far as I can tell, Victoria is correct," Lady Photon noted, closing the door behind us and stepping past me. "Taylor doesn't appear to be hostile, and seems to understand what we say."

"So why not hand her over to the PRT -" he began. I shook my head.

"She doesn't want to go to the PRT or to the Protectorate," Glory Girl elaborated.

"Okay, fine," he sighed. "Taylor, is it?"

I nodded, and gave a chirp of agreement.

He blinked, seeming a little taken aback. "Well, uh, make yourself comfortable, I guess. Are you hungry?"

I snuffled at the air; if my nose didn't deceive me, he had a fish paste sandwich. I nodded, just a little. _Hungry, but not starving._ Of course, flying across the city had a way of sharpening the appetite.

"Okay, uh, get comfortable. Sarah, could you keep our guest company? Vicky, a word in the kitchen, please?"

Flashbang – Mark Dallon; Glory Girl's real name was Victoria Dallon – left the room. I felt a little sorry for her, as I figured she was about to get a parental interrogation. I'd had one or two of those in my time.

"So, uh, can you even sit on the sofa?" asked Lady Photon.

I eyed the piece of furniture, and tried to work out how to sit properly. With my new body, I wasn't at all sure I could manage it. But by curling my tail out of the way, I managed to ease my way down, tucking my folded wings in close to my body. But I found it hard to sit upright; it was easier to let my weight fall to one side, to lie down. To curl up, with my tail wrapped in close to my body, my wings partly wrapped around me.

My head rested on the arm rest at the end of the sofa. I sighed; this was actually _comfortable._ The nictitating membranes flickered once or twice across my eyes, and then I closed my actual eyelids. I had been going non-stop since the locker, since the change, and it felt so good to _relax._

With my eyes closed, I felt myself drifting away …

* * *

"Oh my god!"

My eyes flew open at Sarah's exclamation. Everything was blurry; why was everything blurry? I tried to flick my nictitating membranes across my eyes to clear whatever the problem was, but they didn't respond. I could make out her form, though, standing and staring at me. A white and gold form dashed in from the other room, also stopped and stared.

 _What's the matter? What's happened? What have I changed into now?_

Using my wings, I pushed myself into an upright position. Opening my jaws, I let out an inquiring chirp. "What? What's up?"

That was _my voice!_ I slapped my hand over my mouth.

My _hand._ My _mouth._

I was back to normal. I looked down at myself.

 _Oh yeah, back to normal, all right._ My body was all there. I could see it plainly, within the limits of my short-sightedness. Arms, legs, no tail, lots and lots of pink skin.

Yes, I was back to normal. I was also very naked.

Grabbing a sofa cushion, I held it over myself.

"Uh, some clothes, please?"

* * *

End of Part Two


	3. Chapter 3

**Wyvern**

* * *

Part Three: Handling Matters

* * *

" _But Taylor knows nothing_ _ **about**_ _explosives," Danny tried to explain, for the third time. "For that matter,_ _ **I**_ _know nothing about explosives. She_ _ **couldn't**_ _have made any kind of bomb."_

 _The police officer sitting on the other side of the interview table didn't seem to have heard him. "Our kids can surprise us, Mr Hebert," he stated without any real kind of inflection. "Did you keep books on chemistry or the making of explosives in your house? Did you store chemicals of any sort?" He consulted a list, then handed it over to Danny. "Any of these?"_

 _Danny took it, frowning. "No, we never had books on bomb making," he replied. "Chemistry books, yeah. She does high school chemistry. As for these chemicals … I think we have drain cleaner, yeah. And detergent." He put the list on the table. "But_ _ **anyone**_ _could have these chemicals. Someone who knew how to make a bomb. Why are you picking on Taylor in this?"_

" _Because the roll call post-evacuation indicated several students not present, one of whom is your daughter," the police officer informed him. "And your daughter's locker is the one that was blown up."_

" _So one of the others -"_

" _The others are, without exception, those with reasonable excuses to be out of school, or those with a regular habit of skipping classes. Your daughter is the only one with anything like a regular attendance record who should have been there, but wasn't."_

" _Well, maybe someone else blew her locker up," Danny suggested. "Did you think of that?"_

" _Her locker door was blown off of its hinges. We found it embedded in the opposite wall," the officer stated flatly. "The explosion almost certainly originated within the locker. Does your daughter share her locker combination with anyone else?"_

" _Emma, maybe?" Danny hazarded. "But she's Taylor's best friend. She wouldn't do something like this to her."_

 _The police officer made a note. "Last name of this Emma, sir?"_

" _Uh, Emma Barnes," Danny supplied. "Her father's name is Alan Barnes. But she wouldn't have done this. Taylor's known her since grade school."_

" _Is that with an S or an E-S?" asked the officer._

" _B-A-R-N-E-S," Danny supplied. "Maybe I should ring Alan and ask him if Emma even saw Taylor show up to school today."_

" _Leave us to make the enquiries, sir," the officer reproved him gently. "Now, do you know if your daughter had any problems with anyone else at school? A teacher, perhaps, or another student?"_

" _I have no idea." Danny shrugged helplessly. "She never talks about school. We barely talk at all."_

" _Perhaps her mother might know more, sir?" suggested the officer._

 _Danny shook his head, feeling the old pain. "Her mother is dead. She died in a car accident about two and a half years ago."_

" _My condolences, sir," the officer told him automatically. "Has your daughter's behaviour changed recently? Has she exhibited odd habits?"_

" _I don't know," Danny told him, feeling shame that he had to confess this. "We really haven't been close, recently."_

* * *

" _The sides and top have been peeled back from the force of the explosion; the lockers on either side have suffered catastrophic damage. There appear to be the remains of toxic waste within the locker, and spread on the floor around it."_

 _Explosives expert James Doherty ceased narrating into the recorder, and leaned down to gingerly pick up a small blackened item between gloved thumb and forefinger. He dropped it into an evidence bag; despite the filter mask, his nose wrinkled from the smell._

" _What is it?" asked his assistant, closing the bag carefully._

" _Best guess, a used tampon," Doherty replied. "A bit charred, but still mostly there. There were a lot more of them, I would guess, as well as other similar items, but the explosion destroyed most of them."_

" _That would seem to defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?" asked his assistant, whose name Doherty had never bothered to remember; a bright lad, he nevertheless still had a lot to learn about the business._

" _That's presuming that the purpose of the explosion was to spread the waste," Doherty agreed. "But it wasn't."_

" _It wasn't?"_

" _That's what I said," Doherty stated. "The explosion took place about … here." He leaned in, putting his gloved fingertip at about chest level, just inside where the locker door had once stood. "Whereas the toxic waste was all down in the bottom of the locker. If the purpose was to spread the crap around, it was about the worse possible location for it."_

" _So what_ _ **was**_ _the purpose of the explosion?" asked his assistant. "Lockers don't just explode for no reason."_

" _And_ _ **that's**_ _the right question," Doherty agreed with a nod. ""What did the explosion do, above all else?"_

" _Blew the locker to hell and gone?"_

 _Doherty allowed himself a slight smile under the mask. "Specifically. What was the one real effect we have here?"_

 _There was a moment of intense cogitation, then his assistant pointed at the door, which had been carefully pried out of the wall, to allow for closer examination. "Blew the door off."_

" _So let's go look at the door. Something's been bothering me, and I just realised what."_

 _They stood side by side, looking at the door. Doherty pointed. "That's where the explosion took place." It was fairly obvious; the metal had been distorted, the paint scoured down to the metal. Annealing patterns threw back rainbow reflections._

" _Right where you said it would be," his assistant agreed. "So what was bothering you, before?"_

 _Doherty pointed, farther down. "What are those marks?"_

 _Almost hidden, camouflaged by first being blasted off of the locker, then slamming into the wall opposite, several sets of parallel gouges could just barely be seen in the metal. "They look like … scratches." The assistant paused, frowning. "Shrapnel?"_

 _Doherty shook his head. "No. Shrapnel would have spread directly away from the epicentre. These are overlapping lines, each set parallel in itself, but each set is aligned in a different direction. And there are three in each set. What does that remind you of?"_

" _I – I'm not sure -"_

" _Think. Ignore the explosion. Ignore the rest of it. Where have you seen marks like that before?"_

 _The assistant blinked. "Claw marks. There was an_ _ **animal**_ _in the locker?"_

" _They didn't find a body," Doherty pointed out. "Human, animal, whatever. Whatever did that was low to the ground. Also … " He crouched, and touched his gloved fingertips to one set of gouges. They had to spread, just a little, to each touch a separate groove. "Whatever made these wasn't any house cat."_

" _So what does this mean?"_

 _Doherty stood, and dusted his hands off. "We wait for the lab results to come back regarding the samples and residues they took in. And if it turns out the way I think it will, we'll be off the case."_

 _The assistant tilted his head. "Why is that?"_

 _Doherty felt a wry grin twisting his lips under the mask. "Because it'll be the PRT's problem, then. And good luck to them."_

* * *

"Wait right here," commanded Glory Girl. "I'll be right back." She dashed into the kitchen. "Dad," I heard her say, "don't go anywhere. Especially not the living room, okay?"

"Why?" he asked.

"Clothing emergency. Just stay in here, all right?"

I heard a grunt that I assumed to mean assent, then she emerged once more, and dashed up the stairs. Moments later, she reappeared, bearing a huge fluffy pink bathrobe. I stared at it; it looked large enough to use as a hang-glider.

"What?" she asked, her cheeks going nearly as pink as the bathrobe. _"I_ like it.'

"I wasn't going to say a word," I assured her, truthfully enough, and swapped cushion for bathrobe. It covered me; more to the point, it _enveloped_ me. I was covered from neck to ankles in fluffy pink extravagance.

Glory Girl – or Vicky, as she insisted that I call her – took me upstairs and fitted me out in new clothes; or rather, some of the clothes that she was thinking of giving away. A pair of her skinny jeans – not so skinny on my lanky frame – went well with a t-shirt that showed just a little tiny bit of my belly, given that I had a few inches on the teen superhero.

"Well, you're dressed," she declared with satisfaction as I put a borrowed headband in my hair. _"And_ you're human again. How _did_ you do that, anyway?"

"I'm not sure," I confessed. "The sofa was so comfortable that I kind of lay down and drifted off. When your aunt cried out, I woke up and I was me."

"Huh," she mused; I got the impression that she was a little disappointed that she couldn't show off dragon-me to her sister Panacea, or 'Ames' as she referred to the healer. "Have you tried to change back?"

"Um, nope," I told her. "Realising I was a dragon was scary enough the first time around."

"Well, we know you _can_ ," she insisted. "Go on, see if you can change back again."

Frowning, I concentrated. There seemed to be _something_ there, but I couldn't really reach it. "I guess I'm too comfortable," I confessed. "I think I changed back to human when I started feeling comfortable and relaxed."

"Oh," she replied, and turned away. "I guess then – _boo!"_

I jumped a little as she threw up her hands at the same time as shouting the word, but nothing else happened.

"It's not exactly something that can happen with a fright," I told her severely.

"Well, how _did_ it happen, exactly?" she asked.

So I told her; arriving at Winslow, being taunted for being too tall, too skinny, too ugly. Every word striking at the core of my being, even as I tried to ignore them. Arriving at my locker, opening it, being shoved in, locked in. I choked then, and began to cry. Vicky held me, stroked my hair as I sat on her bed.

I was vaguely aware of someone arriving at the doorway to Vicky's room. Vicky's aunt Sarah, by the sound of her voice. She was asking, I thought, about what was going on. Vicky repeated to her what I had said, more or less, and then Sarah went away.

"Hey," murmured Vicky. "Hey, hey. It's all right." I felt a warmth enfolding me, a blanket made of pure love and affection. Belatedly, I realised that it was Glory Girl's aura, even as I felt myself calming down.

A tissue was offered to me, and I took it, blowing my nose loudly. "Sorry," I mumbled. "I just … " I trailed off. _You weren't there; I can't even_ _ **begin**_ _to expect you to understand._

"It's _all good,"_ she insisted. "Trigger events are going to hit anyone hard."

"Trigger what?" I asked, distracted despite myself.

"Trigger events," she explained cheerfully. "One minute you're boppin' along, smelling the flowers, having a good day. Next thing, _bam!_ Worst day of your life. And that's what causes trigger events. You obviously had one, right there."

" … oh." I peered at her with my blurry eyesight. "Was your trigger event that bad, too?"

"Nope, thank God." She shook her head with a chuckle, her blonde hair waving back and forth. "I'm second generation. Me and Ames were always going to trigger, and second gens got it really easy. I got fouled in a basketball game, about one second before I was gonna score. The ref didn't even see it. So I got up, grabbed the ball, flew over to their hoop, and jammed it through so hard that I ripped their hoop right off of the backboard. It was only afterward that I realised that I'd triggered."

"Wow," I murmured. "That must have surprised the heck out of them."

"Annoyed the crap out of me, let me tell you," Vicky confided. "If they'd let me keep that score, we would've won the game."

I went to smile at the dryness of her tone, but I ended up biting my lip. "Why do people _do_ this sort of thing?" I asked. "Why do they choose to hurt someone, just because they can?"

"I have no idea, Taylor," Vicky told me solemnly. "But it's because people act that way that I go out and kick ass on a daily basis. If they think it's okay to treat people like that, then it has to be okay for me to treat them that way, right?"

Her tone was so bright, so upbeat, that I smiled involuntarily. "Sure, I guess," I answered.

She shook her head; again, the golden hair bounced. "None of this 'I guess' bullshit, Taylor. You're a cape now too. You've got to understand the responsibility you've got here."

"Yeah, great." I rolled my eyes. "I'm a cape who doesn't know how to change into my powered form. Next up on the news: Taylor Hebert, the girl who turned into a dragon, then forgot how she did it."

Abruptly, Vicky stood up from the bed. "I refuse to believe that," she declared, pacing across the room. "I believe in you. I believe that when you think you have to change, then you will. I believe that you're going to change – _now!"_

And as she turned, shouted, pointed … a wave of dread swept across me.

Too late, I realised what she was doing. _Her aura. She's using the aura on me._

Too late, I protested. "Wait -"

* * *

" _ **I'm sorry,**_ **who** ** _did you say you were?"_**

" _Sarah Pelham," she repeated patiently. "Lady Photon. Of New Wave. You do know who I am, right?"_

" _ **I've heard of you, yes,"**_ _he admitted._ _ **"And you say you've got news of Taylor? Because I've just spent far too long at the police station, and they've got**_ **no** ** _idea where she is."_**

" _I should say so," she replied with relish. "She's upstairs with my niece Glory Girl right now."_

" _ **Is – is she all right? The police say that there was an explosion -"**_

" _I don't know anything about an explosion," she replied, wondering what the heck_ _ **that**_ _was about. "But Taylor is fine. A little confused, certainly, but she's not injured in any way."_

" _ **Why does New Wave have her?"**_ _he asked next._ _ **"Has she committed a crime?"**_

" _Not … exactly," she replied. "Listen, I can take the phone up to her if you want. Vicky's just giving her something to wear."_

" _ **Yes, please."**_ _A pause._ _ **"Uh … what happened to her clothes?"**_

" _I think I'll let her explain that one to you herself," she prevaricated. "It's … complicated."_

" _ **Oh, god, was she attacked -"**_

" _No, she's perfectly fine. She was not attacked." She climbed the stairs and started along the corridor. "She can tell you -"_

 _The wave of dread and horror smashed through her, and she nearly dropped the phone. She had only been subjected to it once or twice before, by accident, but she knew exactly what had caused it. At the same time, she heard a reptilian screech, and the tearing of cloth._

 _Recovering from the aura, she got to the door of Vicky's room and looked inside. There, shaking itself free from the remnants of what had once been a pair of skinny jeans, was the human-sized dragon, resplendent in red-gold scales. Vicky was standing off to the side, her expression jubilant. "Hah!" she declared. "I_ _ **knew**_ _that would -" Turning, she saw Sarah peering through the door. "Oh, hi, Aunt Sarah." Her 'innocent of all charges' expression needed work._

 _The dragon turned too; one enormously elongated finger, now forming a wingtip, pointed directly at Vicky. Sarah didn't need any dragon-to-human dictionary to decipher the screech that Taylor gave then: "_ _ **She**_ _did it."_

 _Sarah sighed and put the phone to her ear again. "Uh, maybe you'd better come over instead. And bring clothes."_

* * *

End of Part Three


	4. Chapter 4

**Wyvern**

* * *

Part Four: Escalation

* * *

 _Danny Hebert pulled up in front of the address that he had been given. A two-storey house, it looked perfectly normal; the lawn needed a little bit of a trim and the frontage could have done with a touch of paint, but that was not exactly uncommon in Brockton Bay. Grabbing the plastic bag of clothes, he got out, locked the car, and hurried up the front path._

 _As he did so, he heard the strangest sound; somewhere between a screech and a squawk, it reminded him of an angry parrot or perhaps one of those dinosaurs from Jurassic Park. More interestingly, it appeared to emanate from one of the upstairs windows._ _ **Taylor must be watching a movie,**_ _he decided._ _ **Well, if she's doing that, she must be all right.**_

 _He knocked at the door; a moment later, Lady Photon answered the door. Up close, she looked just a little harried._ _ **Having two teenage superheroes in the household would do that,**_ _he figured._ _ **Even if you**_ **are** _ **Photon Mom.**_

 _"Uh, hi," he greeted her. "I'm, uh, Danny Hebert?"_

 _"Sarah Pelham," she greeted him warmly, offering her hand to shake. "I'm pleased to meet you. Come in, please."_

 _"Thank you." Stepping past her, he found himself in a modestly-appointed living room; a man in casual clothing, around his own age, was sitting on the sofa. However, Taylor was nowhere to be seen._

 _"Taylor should be down in a moment," Lady Photon – he had the hardest time thinking of her as Mrs Pelham – informed him as she moved past him. "She's just changing."_

 _"Oh, sorry," the man on the sofa apologised, standing and offering his hand. "Mark Dallon. You're Taylor's father?"_ _ **Flashbang. This is**_ **Flashbang** _ **, and he was just now sitting on the sofa, watching TV.**_

 _Danny marvelled that he'd never shaken a superhero's hand before, and now it was two in one day. "Uh, yeah," he managed. "You said she was okay? Not hurt?"_

 _"No, not hurt that I could see," Lady Photon assured him._

 _"Then what aren't you telling me?" he asked. "When I spoke to you on the phone, you told me to bring clothes. And now she's having to change her clothes_ _ **again**_ _? What's going on?"_

 _But even as she opened her mouth to answer him, he heard the noise again; an angry screech, followed by a teenage girl's voice. "Calm down. Come on, you can do it. He'll be here any minute now."_

 _There was another screech, or squawk, or whatever it was, and Danny turned to Lady Photon. "Are they watching a movie up there or something?"_

 _If anything, she looked a little more harried. "Uh, or something?"_

 _"What the hell's going on here?" he demanded, then raised his voice. "Taylor! It's me! Are you all right?" That got a reaction; there was another, more urgent, screech and a thumping sound. "Taylor?" he called again._

 _Lady Photon put her hand on Danny's arm. "Mr Hebert, there's something you need to know. Something about Taylor."_

 _"What_ _ **about**_ _Taylor?" He pulled free from her grip and started up the steps. She followed him up._

 _"She might not be the same as you remember her." Her voice was urgent._

 _Stopping, he rounded on her. "I thought you said that she was all right!"_

 _"I said that she wasn't hurt," she corrected him. "But she's ... undergone changes. She's a little_ _ **different**_ _now."_

 _"Different_ _ **how**_ _?" He turned away from her, and stormed up the staircase. "Taylor!"_

 _As he reached the top of the steps, a door opened, and something like a lizard's head, covered in red-gold scales, poked out. He had enough time to register that it was about the same size as his own head, and about four feet off the floor, before it turned to look at him. The eyes widened, then the mouth widened even more. It had a great many teeth, all very white and very sharp, as well as a startlingly-pink tongue. A crest atop its head erected at the same time; it made one of those dinosaur noises, apparently in alarm, then pulled back into the room._

 _A moment later, a teenage girl with long blonde hair stepped out through the same doorway; she wore jeans and a T-shirt bearing the logo 'Daddy's Princess'. "Hi!" she greeted him cheerfully. "I'm Vicky. You're Taylor's dad?"_

 _"Yes," he replied grimly. "Where is my daughter, and what was that thing?"_

 _"Uh, yeah, funny thing about that." Her cheerful grin was still steadfastly on her face, but she was having to work at it. "They're kind of … one and the same?"_

" _What?" Her statement made absolutely no sense whatsoever._

" _Okay, long story short? Taylor can kind of turn into a dragon. But she has trouble changing, and she has trouble changing back. Right now, she's a dragon. I've been trying to get her to relax so she can change back, and it's not working."_

 _From within the room, there came another burst of the weird dino-screeching. Vicky – he had to presume that this was Victoria Dallon, aka Glory Girl – turned her attention to the doorway. "Okay, yeah, I got it. It was my fault. How was I to know that you couldn't change back as easily?"_

* * *

I made a grumpy noise and folded my wings again. It had been rather a shock to come face to face with Dad when I was still like this; I'd been trying to change back since Vicky had hit me with her fear-aura, and even curling up on her bed hadn't worked.

"Wait," Dad's voice came from the corridor. "That was … _Taylor?"_

"Yeah," Vicky told him enthusiastically. "You should see her flying. She's _awesome."_

"She can _fly?"_

"Well, duh, she's got wings." She reached out of my view. "Come see."

Dad came into view, stumbling to a halt, then stared at me. I stood up to my full height and unfurled my wings, spreading them out as far as I could in the confines of Vicky's room. Then, after I folded them again, I leaned my head toward him, my tail stretching out as a counterbalance, and made an inquiring noise.

He blinked rapidly behind his glasses, and his mouth opened and closed several times.

"Taylor?"

I nodded.

He looked at Vicky. "Did it … did she … just nod?"

"Yeah," Vicky assured him. "She's still in there, Mr H. She can understand English."

"Ah." He looked back at me. "You're a … how did you become a _dragon?"_

I gave him one of my patented shrugs and made a noise of exasperation.

"She can't speak?"

Vicky refrained from rolling her eyes. "Sure she can _speak._ She just can't speak _English."_

"Oh. Yeah." A thought apparently struck him. "But how do you even know who she is? It's not like she can introduce herself."

"We were down at the Boardwalk. She wrote in the sand. With her wingtip."

When he looked at me, I unlimbered my right wing and pretended to write on the carpet with my index finger/wingtip.

"Oh," he observed. "I see. That's pretty smart."

"Oh," Vicky repeated, her eyes going wide. _"Oh!"_ She jumped to her feet. "Wait one! Got a great idea! I'm a freaking _genius!"_

"What?" asked Dad, but she had already darted out the door. He looked back at me; I shrugged. _I have no idea._

We stared at one another for a long moment. "So," he commented. "You're Taylor."

I nodded, letting out a chirp of agreement.

"And you're a dragon."

Another nod, another chirp.

"And you have no idea how you got that way."

I paused, then shook my head.

"Wait," he stated. "Is that 'no, I have no idea', or 'no, you are wrong, I have an idea'?"

I had no idea how to answer that, so I made a questioning noise.

"Okay," he realised, lightly slapping himself on the forehead. "Left hand for 'I don't have any idea', right hand for 'I have some idea'."

I hesitated, then held up my right wingtip. Then, to make it clear, I reached across and tapped his right hand with what had once been my index finger.

"So you have an idea," he decided. I nodded, and chirped agreeably.

"But you can't tell me, because we have no language in common. I speak English, and you apparently speak only Dragon, or whatever that sound is."

Once again, I chirped in agreement, slumping, my whole body drooping. _I can't even talk to Dad._ The thought was amazingly depressing. _I'd give all this up, just so I could talk to him._

"Hey," he murmured, apparently reading my posture much more readily than he could decipher my utterances. "It's gonna be all right. We'll work this out. You're still my daughter." Pulling the comforter off of Vicky's bed, he wrapped it around me, wings and all.

It was warm, but that wasn't the best part of it. The best part was when he hugged me, his arms around the comforter, holding me close, his embrace making me feel safe and loved. I wished my wings were up to hugging him back, but then again, right at that moment I didn't care. Laying my head on his shoulder, I closed my eyes. Laying his head on my head, he apparently did the same.

"Hah! Found it! Knew it was around here some – oh, come _on! Seriously?"_

Dad and I looked up as Vicky re-entered the room, bearing a printed sheet of plastic, her expression altering dramatically from triumph to exasperation.

"What?" he asked. And I echoed him.

I was human again.

* * *

" _Okay, what am I looking at?" James Doherty held up the readout and peered at it._

" _The chemical makeup of those samples you sent me."_

 _Doherty looked at the lab tech in some surprise. "This fast?"_

" _Hey," she replied with a shrug. "A bomb going off in a school gets fast-tracked. Who knew?"_

" _Okay, so what do we have here?"_

" _Some really interesting results, I have to say." The tech pointed at the readout with a pen. "Check it out. You've got some pretty exotic compounds here. Some of them, I've never seen outside of a lab."_

 _Doherty frowned. "So, not the result of an explosion?"_

" _Oh yeah, definitely the result of an explosion," she contradicted him. "But it's the_ _ **type**_ _of explosive that's really weird. Not nitrate based."_

" _Okay, that_ _ **is**_ _weird," admitted Doherty. He could think of ways to cause an explosion without using nitrates, but most of them involved an admixture of oxygen and one flammable gas or another. Not really something that could cause the localised detonation that had taken the locker door off._ _ **Though there was plenty of flame involved …**_

 _He looked again at the readout. "So, the types of explosives we're talking about here … would your average high school student be able to get the ingredients for them?"_

" _A Tinker_ _ **might**_ _," she mused. "One who was based around chemistry or explosive making. Like I said, that stuff's pretty damn exotic. Also, expensive."_

" _So that's a no for a student, then?"_

" _That's a no," she agreed. "Unless the student was a Tinker, like I said."_

" _Or, you know, could exude explosive compounds from their body at will," he pointed out. "All of those compounds you've got, they're organic, right?"_

" _Organic, yes," she confirmed. "Some of them would be pretty damn caustic in their original form, though."_

" _I don't think that actually bothers parahumans," he pointed out._

" _You think that's how it happened?" she asked._

" _That or the Tinker idea. Anything else is a little far-fetched, yeah?"_

 _Reluctantly, she nodded. "Great. So it's not a baseline crime after all. It's a parahuman thing."_

" _Afraid so." He shrugged. "Sorry."_

" _And after all that work I did."_

" _Buy you coffee to make it up to you?"_

" _Have to be some damn good coffee."_

 _He grinned. "I know a place."_

* * *

Vicky held the comforter around me while Dad discreetly retired from the room; opening the bag that he had brought over, I started getting dressed. Again.

"Seriously, do not use that fear aura on me again," I told her as I stepped into my second favourite pair of jeans (my _favourite_ jeans had perished in the locker, alas). "Or I'll set fire to all your good outfits."

She wrinkled her brow. "Set fire?" Then her eyes widened. "Holy crap, you can breathe fire _too?"_

"Well, duh," I agreed. "Dragon, remember?" I wrinkled my nose at her. "I was just about to tell you, before, when you made me change back."

"Tell me what?" Her eyes were alive with interest. "You actually breathed _fire?"_

"Wait one." I pulled my t-shirt over my head. It was black, a little faded, a bit worn down on one side, but I liked it. "Yeah, how do you think I got out of the locker?"

"Well, I _had_ thought you went 'rawr, dragon smash' on it and just busted out," she confessed. "But that's not what happened, I'm guessing?"

"I _tried_ to go 'rawr, dragon smash', but it appears that school lockers are tough enough that they don't have to worry about that sort of thing," I admitted. "So I fireballed the fuck out of it."

Vicky blinked. " … you _what?"_

"Hit it with an exploding fireball," I told her. "Before you ask, I don't know how I knew to do that. But I did. And it kind of blew the door clean off. Left me a bit dizzy too. But I still had all that shit on me from the locker, so I went outside and took off, heading for the ocean."

"Which is where I came in," Vicky agreed. "Well. Wow. Holy shit. That beats the living crap out of _my_ trigger event story." She brightened up. "Can I see?"

"See what?" I caught on a second later. "No. _Hell_ no. Don't make me change while I'm wearing clothes. Not while my Dad's here. No. Just _no."_

She pouted. "Spoilsport. Okay, fine. You're all dressed now. Let's go downstairs. I'm pretty sure your dad will want to know everything you've been up to."

"Yeah," I sighed. "That's what I'm afraid of."

* * *

" _ **Control to Armsmaster. Come in, Armsmaster."**_

" _Armsmaster here." Colin banked his bike around the corner, heading for the Boardwalk. "What's up?"_

" _ **Got something for you to check on,"**_ _the PRT staffer on the floating base told him._ _ **"Explosion at Winslow High earlier today. Forensic techs have determined that it wasn't a standard IED."**_

" _So we're looking at a Tinker then?" He pulled the bike to a halt and parked it. Stepping off, he trod over the boards of the Boardwalk, then looked down toward the sand. At this time of year, the only thing inhabiting the beach were hordes of seagulls and other aquatic birds._

" _ **That's a possibility. Or a parahuman who can create exotic explosives from nothing."**_

" _Great. One more thing we have to worry about. Do we even have any explosives Tinkers on the books?"_

" _ **Not that I know of – Tinkers specialising in explosives, that is. Any number of Tinkers who use explosives in their gadgets. Stinger, for instance."**_

" _Get someone to check for me. It might be important. Also, did the cameras happen to pick up a thing like a big red bat or bird flying over the Boardwalk at any time today? I'm tracking down some sightings. People said it was coming this way."_

" _ **Just one second."**_ _A pause._ _ **"While we're waiting, want me to squirt you the details on the Winslow bombing?"**_

" _Go ahead."_

 _As the files came in, he flicked them to storage, pulling crime scene photos aside to study at his leisure. A skim of them showed a metal locker opened like a flower, the ones on either side destroyed. Extensive fire damage; the locker door embedded in the far wall._

" _ **Okay, I've got an answer. Yes, they did pick something up. Something red, with wings, flew in over the rooftops and dived into the ocean. And here's the interesting part. Glory Girl was hot on its tail."**_

" _Odd that she didn't at least call in the sighting."_

" _ **She went into the water too. It would have destroyed her phone. But then they both came out of the water, landed on the sand for a bit, then flew inland again."**_

" _Where did they land? Relative to my position?"_

" _ **One second. Uh … hundred fifty yards south of your position."**_

" _Hundred fifty yards, got it." He got back on to the bike and motored a hundred and fifty yards, as noted. Climbing off the bike once more, he descended the steps. It only took him a few minutes of searching before he found what he was looking for. The sand was firm and solid, and there were fresh footprints clearly visible in it. Also visible were what looked like the marks of claws, digging into the sand._

 _His helmet cam took clear pictures of the claw marks, but then he saw the other things. Lines, drawn in the sand. Lines forming letters. Letters forming words. The everpresent sea birds had trodden over some of them, obscuring them, but he managed to make out the words 'my' and 'please'. Other words could be inferred, but not known for sure._

 _He took more photos of the lines, both trodden on and clear, and then trudged back to the stairs up to the Boardwalk. "Control, give the Dallon house a call. See if Glory Girl went there. And if she's still there. I want to talk to her."_

" _ **Roger that. I'll get right on it."**_

" _Let me know when you've got something."_

" _ **Will do. Will you be taking on the Winslow bombing?"**_

" _What's the name of the primary suspect?"_

" _ **The locker was used by one Taylor Hebert. She hasn't yet been located. Her home address is in the file I sent you. So is her picture."**_

" _I'll check her home first," Colin decided. "Fugitives – especially children and teenagers – tend to run to familiar places. Home, for a start." He kicked the bike into life._

" _ **Understood."**_

* * *

"They shut you in your _locker?"_ Dad was aghast.

I nodded without speaking; Mrs Pelham had given me a cup of black tea, and I sipped it gratefully. On the coffee table, a plate of cookies was gradually dwindling under a determined assault by myself and Vicky.

"So who did this?" he demanded. "I'll get them suspended. Expelled. God, I'll have them _arrested."_

"Dad, no, just wait a second," I told him. "If it comes out that I was _in_ the locker, I'll be outed as _some_ kind of parahuman. And … this is _Winslow._ They don't _care._ I tried and tried to get someone to listen, and they just … don't. Or they've been told not to. I'm not sure which."

"Wait, what now?" Dad was staring at me. "You mean, this isn't the first time this has happened?"

I shook my head. "No. Dad, it's been going on since I _started_ there."

"But why didn't you _tell_ me?"

The shock on his face was killing me. "You had problems of your own, Dad. Mom had only been dead a year. You were still hurting from that. _I_ was still hurting from that. I didn't want to add to your problems, not right then."

Removing his glasses, Dad scrubbed at his face with his hands. "Okay, I can kind of see that," he admitted. "But why didn't you get help? Tell a teacher?"

"I _tried._ But if you show up as a snitch, they ostracise you, so I stopped snitching. Not that it did any good. So I waited for the teachers to notice that it was happening. They never did. Either the ones that were doing it were always careful not to be seen, or the teachers didn't want to see it."

"Oh god," he muttered. "You've gone through all this, and no-one's been helping you? Why didn't you ask Emma for help, to back you up?"

I took a deep breath. "Dad. She's _behind_ it."

And then it all came out; the harsh words, the subtle taunting, the physical stuff, the pranks. Dad listened, open-mouthed, to my litany of woes. Mrs Pelham and Vicky also listened; one with steadily tightening lips, the other with blazing eyes.

* * *

 _The Hebert house was a little shabby, a little run-down. But it was in a shabby, run-down section of town. No car was in the driveway; Colin was willing to bet that nobody was at home. Of course, if Taylor had gotten back here, she could be hiding in her room, in the basement, wherever, and nobody would be the wiser, until her father got home._

" _Any luck with contacting her father?"_

" _ **Not yet. We've tried the home phone, but nobody's answered so far. The person who we got on his work phone says that he was called away on a family emergency. No other details."**_

" _Does his wife work?"_

" _ **He's a widower. Wife died about two and a half years ago."**_

" _No other children?"_

" _ **None of record."**_

" _So a 'family emergency' would almost have to be his kid. Now, where would he have gone?"_

" _ **There is the possibility that after the Winslow incident, they just left town."**_

 _Colin shook his head, although the PRT operator would not be able to see it. "I don't buy that. If that was the case, they'd still be here, packing. I'm guessing that she went to ground, and then called her father. Probably he's trying to convince her to face up to what she's done."_

" _ **So what are you going to do now?"**_

" _Wait till one of them shows their faces. In the meantime, I'm going to follow up on these sightings of this big red bird. Any response from the Dallon household?"_

" _ **Yes, actually. We got Flashbang. He confirmed that Glory Girl was indeed home, but that she was talking, upstairs, with a friend."**_

" _Good. I'm on my way there now."_

" _ **Understood."**_

* * *

"Dad, _no."_ For the fourth time, I tried to dissuade him. "Winslow _doesn't care._ If they care at all, it's about the fact that Mr Barnes is a lawyer. Emma and her friends get away with everything short of murder, there. If we go up against them, the school will take their side. They have every other time."

Dad shook his head. "I don't buy that. I can't believe that."

I tried again. "Look. They didn't start on me _immediately._ They took the time to get themselves established as the 'good' girls, the popular girls in our year. Emma makes friends really easily, and she made friends. A _lot_ of friends."

I paused for a sip at my tea. "I'm just as happy being on my own as being with people, and Emma was keeping me at arms' length, so I pretended it didn't matter, and spent my time reading in the library or something. But then they started bullying me, but they always had excuses if I retaliated. Always the witnesses, always the agreed-on stories. I was the loner, I was the troublemaker. I was the one who got detention, told to behave myself."

Vicky moved to sit next to me, and gripped my hand. "That _sucks."_

I spared a smile for her. "Thanks." Another sip at my tea. "Pretty soon, they were golden. If I said anything, I was already discredited. They had it all sorted out. Kids are pretty insecure; if there's something they can join in on for little risk, they will. That was the sport of bullying me."

"And _none_ of the teachers are willing to help, to believe you?" Mrs Pelham sounded like she couldn't believe it.

"Well, there's my home room teacher, Mrs Knott," I told her. "She's listened a few times, but each time she's taken anything to the principal, she's been really quiet the next few days, and nothing's ever been done. So now she's nice to me in class, but that's about it."

"Dad," Vicky spoke up. "Can I transfer to Winslow? At least on a temporary basis?"

Mr Dallon looked up, somewhat startled. "Uh, why? From what Taylor's saying, Winslow's a really, uh, -"

"Crappy place, yeah," she agreed. "That's why I want to go. I'll get myself put into all of Taylor's classes, and see if those bullies want to try bullying her with _me_ around. Fuck 'em."

"Language!" chided Mrs Pelham, but there was a glint in her eye. "In my experience, bullies tend to fold, once there's someone stronger there. In the meantime, Carol can approach the school with the threat of legal action unless Taylor is transferred out. After all, if the bullying is bad enough to trigger for super-powers … " She paused, dwelling for a moment on something that only existed in her mind's eye. " … then I would not want anyone to suffer it a moment longer than absolutely necessary."

"But … why would you all do stuff like that for me?" I protested. "You barely know me. Vicky, you only met me today. This morning."

Vicky let go my hand, but only so she could put her arm around my neck and give me a quick noogie. "Because you're awesome and you can turn into a dragon," she pointed out, once she had let me go. "And you can breathe fire, and I _so_ want to see that."

That got people looking at me from all around. A collective 'What?' followed that up, even from Mr Dallon.

"Uh, yeah, it's kind of how I got out of the locker," I pointed out. "I kind of blew the door off with an explosive fireball. That I breathed at it."

"Which the police have been questioning me about, kiddo," Dad replied dryly. "I had to tell them about a dozen different ways that neither of us knows a damn thing about explosives."

"Which does raise the next question," Mrs Pelham posited. "Taylor, you have powers. These powers are not entirely under your control. What do you intend to do with them?"

Just as I opened my mouth to reply, there came a knocking at the door.

Dad looked at Mrs Pelham. "Were you expecting visitors?"

"Uh, no." She frowned. "Let me go see."

Getting up, she went to the door. There was a tiny screen inset into it, which she tapped. An image came up, and she blinked. "Okay, what's Armsmaster doing here?"

"Armsmaster?" echoed Vicky. "Taylor, you didn't buzz the PRT building or something when I wasn't looking, did you?"

"Uh, no," I told her. But I was pretty sure that whatever he was here for, I was involved. So I got up as well, and wandered over, standing off to one side from the door.

Mrs Pelham opened the door. "Armsmaster," she greeted the armoured hero. "What brings you out our way?"

"I'm here to speak to your niece," he replied bluntly. "Or rather, to whoever or whatever she brought home with her."

My head came up. _Wow, holy shit. How did_ _ **he**_ _find out about me?_ My heart began to pound.

Mrs Pelham glanced sideways to me, and I nodded; she stepped aside.

"You're in luck," she announced. "Here she is."

I stepped into view of the doorway; Armsmaster indeed stood there, imposing in his silver and blue armour. In contrast, I was tall for my age, but anything other than imposing.

"Hi?" I greeted him. His head came up, and I had the distinct impression that he was staring hard at me, despite the fact that his visor was opaque.

"You're Taylor Hebert," he announced, surprise in his voice.

"I … yes, I am," I admitted.

"You blew up your locker at Winslow, damaged other lockers extensively, and set the school on fire."

"I, uh, did, I guess, yeah, but -"

His voice was grim. "In doing so, you endangered the lives of your fellow students. People could have _died_. I'm going to have to ask you to come in for questioning about this matter."

I heard Mrs Pelham's voice off to the side, but not what she was saying. My blood pounded in my ears. This time, I _felt_ the change coming on. _No, no, no, no -_

* * *

Arms lengthened into wings, and membranes grew between my fingers and my arms. My t-shirt was gone, torn to shreds. My jeans – I was going through them at a phenomenal rate, just today – tore and split away from my growing tail, my changing legs. In just a few seconds, in my draconic form, I crouched before Armsmaster, mouth open and wings spread in an unconscious threat display. I couldn't roar, or perhaps I had not yet figured out how, but I was making a pretty loud noise anyway.

He reached behind his back, there were several rapid _click-click_ noises, and his halberd was in his hands. It was perhaps the most versatile weapon in Brockton Bay. Everyone knew that it could cut through steel like soft butter. And he was threatening _me_ with it.

"Stand down!" he shouted. "I will use all necessary force -"

Flame roiled in my gullet, my head dipped low, and I spat fire. Not the explosive fireball that had opened the locker for me, but a tight, controlled burst. Blue-white at the core, blue around the edges; it illuminated the room with actinic brightness. Armsmaster ducked away, but it wasn't aimed at him. When he next looked at his halberd, the head was simply _gone,_ with just a drooping blob of metal at the tip. Behind him, a line of globs of molten metal sizzled on the lawn.

Stepping back carefully, I brought my wings in close to my body, and closed my mouth. _Your move._

* * *

End of Part Four


	5. Chapter 5

**Wyvern**

* * *

Part Five: Discussions

* * *

 _Colin climbed off of his bike, and spent a moment re-straightening his spine. After ensuring that everything was in order, on the bike and on his armour, he trod up the path toward the Dallon house._

 _He wasn't quite sure where this 'big red bird' thing would lead to._ _ **Probably a Case 53, with my luck.**_ _Talk to it, find out where it stood on the 'law and order' front, find out if it had useful powers. If it was a teenager – entirely possible, considering that Glory Girl had apparently befriended it – see about inducting it into the Wards._

 _Such were his thoughts when he knocked on the front door._

 _The door opened after a few moments, to reveal Lady Photon standing there._ _ **She must be visiting.**_

" _Armsmaster," she greeted him, cordially enough. "What brings you out our way?"_

 _ **No sense in beating about the bush.**_ _"I'm here to speak to your niece. Or rather, to whoever or whatever it is that she brought home with her."_

 _Lady Photon glanced sideways at something out of Colin's view; after a moment, she stepped aside._

" _You're in luck," she announced. "Here she is."_

 _Colin had just enough time to wonder_ _ **She?**_ _before a teenage girl stepped into view. "Hi?"_

 _She was tall, skinny, wore round-framed glasses, had long curly hair …_ _ **wait a minute.**_ _His head came up as he flicked to one of the file photos he'd been sent. He hadn't had time to do more than skim the notes on the ride over, but that face looked really familiar._

 _And he was correct. The picture was a match, down to the T-shirt she was wearing._ _ **What the hell is**_ **she** _ **doing here?**_

" _You're Taylor Hebert." He couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice._

" _I … yes, I am." Her voice was nervous, uncertain._ _ **Time to press the advantage.**_

" _You blew up your locker at Winslow, damaged other lockers extensively, and set the school on fire."_

" _I, uh, did, I guess, yeah, but -" He wasn't good at reading expressions, but that was an admission of guilt in anyone's book. The 'big red bird' could wait._ _ **She's the Winslow bomber.**_

 _ **Time to let her know just how much trouble she's in. It might just keep her from trying to act out on the way back to base.**_

" _In doing so," he informed her, his voice as grim as he could make it, "you endangered the lives of your fellow students. People could have_ _ **died**_ _. I'm going to have to ask you to come in for questioning about this matter."_

" _Uh, Armsmaster," began Lady Photon, "I really don't think -"_

 _He began to turn his head to look at her, but then his attention snapped back to the Hebert girl. She was … hunching over? In pain? He frowned, trying to figure out what was happening. Was she having a fit or seizure of some sort?_

* * *

 _In the next second or so, his questions were answered, very dramatically indeed. He had seen animations of creatures evolving from lizard-like forms to mammalian forms; this was more or less the reverse, only it was happening right there in front of him._

 _Her face elongated and became a muzzle; her arms lifted out from her sides, the bones stretching impossibly, the hands enlarging, the fingers becoming long and spindly. Membranes erupted from her skin, filling in the space between her fingers, between her arms and her body. In the process, her t-shirt was shredded, cast off from her body, which was now covered in red-gold scales._

 _ **Christ. She's the 'big red bird'. Only, she's no bird. Not a Case 53 either. She's a Changer. Some kind of … dinosaur?**_

 _Her jeans were likewise split and torn as her legs reshaped to become digitigrade, her feet growing wicked claws – he had seen the marks those claws made in the sand – and a long tail came out from behind. She was no longer human; those arms-become-wings, with their magnificently-coloured red-gold membranes, were stretched out to each side, held up to show the most amount of surface area. A crest arose on her head, displaying the same red-gold membrane, making her look taller, more fearsome. It was a threat display, simple but extremely effective._

 _As she crouched before him, her mouth opened farther than it should have been able to. In the process, it managed to show off a startlingly pink tongue, as well as an inordinate amount of extremely sharp dentition. With those jaws and those teeth, he decided absently, she was quite possibly able to take off a man's hand and wrist, all at the same time. The creature that had been Taylor Hebert –_ _ **is she even**_ **in** _ **there any more?**_ _-let out a long screech of pure menace._

 _Colin Wallis was not one to put much stock in the concept of genetic memory, but this sight, this sound, bypassed his higher logic centres, ran down to his hindbrain, and started setting off all kinds of alarms there._ _ **Danger,**_ _his every instinct screamed._ _ **Danger danger danger.**_

 _Even as his brain manufactured excuses –_ _ **if she's still sentient, then she's deliberately menacing me. If she's not, then she may well see me as a threat and attack without provocation**_ _– he reached back and retrieved his halberd. It unfolded and opened out to its full size; however, he deliberately did not direct the spear-pointed head toward the creature before him. Instead, in his own form of a threat display, he held it up so that the head was silhouetted against the light coming in from outside._ _ **I have a weapon. Here it is. Attack me at your peril.**_

" _Stand down!" He put all the force he could muster into that command. "I will use all necessary force -"_

 _Her head dipped low, her mouth opened a fraction wider, and_ _ **something**_ _erupted from her throat, something that tore past his head, far too close for comfort. He was aware of actinic brightness, as of looking directly into a welding arc, even as his visor adjusted for the glare and he ducked away. Then he felt the radiant heat; his HUD showed hot spots in his left arm and shoulder, and the left side of his chin felt a little singed._

 _The blast –_ _ **what**_ **was** _ **that? Did she just breathe plasma at me?**_ _\- had missed him, thank Christ. His left eye had been somewhat dazzled, but the orange spots were starting to fade. He had the extremely uncomfortable feeling that had she hit him in the head with whatever that was, he would now be missing his head._ _ **Was that a warning shot? Or is her aim that bad?**_

 _And then the alarms in his helmet display caught up with him, and he turned to look at his halberd. Or rather, what was_ _ **left**_ _of his halberd. The head was …_ _ **gone**_ _. Melted, disintegrated, whatever. All that was left was a blob of cooling metal._ _ **Holy**_ **Christ.** _His head snapped back around to the … the_ _ **dragon**_ _. There was no other name for it._

 _But she was no longer threatening him; she had backed up, folded her wings, and closed her mouth. Her eyes – disconcertingly intelligent eyes, now that they were no longer blazing with fury, or fear, or whatever it had been – watched him unwaveringly._

 _Before he could decide what to do next – call for backup, call on Lady Photon for assistance, pull out a secondary weapon – the decision was taken from his hands. A shimmering field popped into existence between him and the red-gold scaled creature._

* * *

"Okay, everyone take a breath!" snapped Mrs Pelham as she stepped up. "Armsmaster, that means you, too!"

Still holding the headless halberd, the armoured hero opened his mouth. The beard on the left side of his jaw seemed to be a little patchy, the skin there reddened. "I – but -"

"But _nothing,"_ Mrs Pelham told him, even as Vicky darted to my side. "Taylor did nothing wrong. She's just had her trigger event, today. _Inside_ the locker that she blew up. Take a moment. Connect the dots."

"Holy crap, that was _awesome!"_ Vicky enthused, as she hugged me, wings and all. "I can't believe that you just wrecked his _halberd!"_

"I can't believe it either," Mrs Pelham commented dryly, over her shoulder, even as she kept the force field up. "Taylor, I think you owe Armsmaster an apology, for melting his halberd."

 _I_ didn't think so – I had felt very threatened at the time – but as she was my host, I nodded. Raising to my full height – not so much shorter than Armsmaster – I dipped my head, and gave him my best attempt at an apologetic chirp. Vicky whispered in my ear – something about 'penis substitute' – and I found out that, yes, dragons can snicker. But they can't giggle. Which sucks.

Mrs Pelham cast a sharp glance at us; we subsided. "And Armsmaster," she continued in what I could not help but think of as her 'Photon Mom' mode, "Taylor deserves an apology for you just accusing her without actually asking her why she did it, or even how."

Armsmaster cleared his throat. "I, uh, may have acted precipitately," he muttered grudgingly. "Perhaps I should have asked more questions before jumping to conclusions."

It was about the most backhanded apology that I had ever gotten, but I nodded magnanimously and gave him a chirp of agreement.

"So we're not going to fight any more?" asked Lady Photon meaningfully. "Because I _will_ put the both of you in time-out corners if I have to." _Oh yeah, definitely Photon Mom._

I ducked my head in submission. _No trouble from me._

"I … there are definitely aspects to this case that I could stand to learn more about," Armsmaster conceded. "If I may come in, I would like to discuss it with you, uh, Taylor."

Mrs Pelham glanced at me; I nodded. The barrier vanished.

* * *

Armsmaster looked at each of us in turn. "All right, let's take this from the top. I _will_ be recording."

He and I were the only two not seated; him because the weight of his armour threatened the integrity of any ordinary chair in which he sat, and me because I had found that my tail got in the way of sitting normally. Thus, I crouched on my haunches with my tail as a prop, and found it comfortable. Not entirely by coincidence, I had situated myself between the armchairs in which Dad and Vicky sat; Mrs Pelham sat on the sofa with her brother-in-law, and Armsmaster stood off to the side where he could see us all. Most particularly me.

That was fine with me; I was watching him just as intently.

When nobody objected, he continued. "Taylor, I am told that you were _in_ the locker that was blown up, and that you triggered there. Is that true?"

I chirped agreement, and nodded my head vigorously.

"Hm." Armsmaster seemed to be studying me. "You can't talk in this form, can you?"

I shook my head firmly, while chirping a negation. _No, duh._

"Perhaps we should hold up while you go and change back?" He paused. "Why _haven't_ you changed back, anyway?"

I looked toward Mrs Pelham; she took a breath. "Because it seems that Taylor's Changer ability has a strong emotional trigger. She tends to transform, involuntarily, when placed under _high stress."_ A pause, to let the words sink in. _Yes, you're to blame_. "The change back doesn't tend to happen unless she's calm, unworried, relaxed, and feeling totally comfortable. That is, _no_ stress. Which I don't see happening any time soon."

"Hm. This could be a problem." For a moment there, I thought he was referring to my difficulties in changing from one form to the other, but then he kept talking. "We can determine 'yes' and 'no', but anything more complex ... "

"Victoria told me that she's perfectly capable of writing," Mrs Pelham pointed out.

"Not with a pen, surely," he commented, looking at my wings; even furled as they were, it was immediately obvious that I would never hold any normal writing implement with them.

"Well, no," Vicky conceded. "With her wingtip, in the sand. Down at the Boardwalk."

"Ah, yes, I saw that," he noted. "Well, we're kind of lacking anything to write in at the moment -"

"Hah!" Vicky exclaimed, making me jump. "And I'm _still_ a genius!"

"Victoria?" inquired her aunt.

"Back in a second," Vicky told her, bouncing out of her chair. "You'll see!"

With that, she darted upstairs, leaving us mystified in her wake. Mrs Pelham looked at Dad, who shrugged. "I have no idea," he admitted.

Moments later, Vicky reappeared, leaping from the top step to the bottom in a single jump. Mrs Pelham cleared her throat sternly. "You shouldn't be flying in the house," she admonished her niece.

Vicky gave her aunt a cheeky grin. "I wasn't really flying. Just, you know, falling kinda slow. Anyway, check it out and tell me I'm not a genius."

With a flourish, she spread out in front of me the sheet of plastic that she had retrieved from her bedroom. If I wasn't much mistaken, it was the same one that she had gone to get, just before Dad helped me change back the last time. I wondered if he could do it again. Or if I could change back under a nice soothing shower …

"Okay, yes, I see where you're going with this."

At Mrs Pelham's comment, I brought my attention back to the present. The plastic sheet was obviously intended to be used for educating younger children; it held a complete alphabet, with upper and lower case letters, as well as the numbers from zero to nine. There was also a colour wheel, and a simple multiplication table. But it was the alphabet that got my attention.

With a triumphant chirp, I reached out and tapped letters in sequence: Y-E-S-Y-O-U-A-R-E-A-G-E-N-I-U-S.

Vicky grinned at me. "Told you." She waved a notepad and pen. "I'll even keep note of what you've already said, here."

G-O-O-D, I tapped out, then I looked at Armsmaster. A-S-K-A-W-A-Y. Vicky scribbled the letters as I tapped them, mumbling to herself.

"Very well," he replied. "I've been reviewing the photos of the remains of the locker, and I found scratches on the lower part of the door. Was that you?"

I nodded, and chirped an affirmative.

"Understood." He paused. "Do you know who put you in there?" I took a deep breath, and reached out to the plastic sheet. 3-B-I-T-C-H-E-S.

"Can you tell me their names?"

I nodded again. E-M-M-A, pause, B-A-R-N-E-S.

"Wait, I've seen that name," he interrupted. There was a long pause, during which he seemed to zone out. "Ah, right," he noted at last. "Mr Hebert, you told the police that Ms Barnes was your daughter's best friend."

"I thought she _was_ ," Dad told him helplessly. "I only just found out today that she's actually spearheading the bullying campaign on my daughter. Her father's been one of my good friends since forever."

"Hm," Armsmaster commented. "Well then. Taylor, do you have other names?"

I nodded. M-A-D-I-S-O-N. Tap-tap on the edge of the plastic. C-L-E-M-E-N-T-S. Tap on the number 3. S-O-P-H-I-A. Tap-tap. H-E-S-S.

"Wait, that last name," Armsmaster interrupted. "Are you sure of that one?"

I nodded emphatically. B-L-A-C-K G-I-R-L T-R-A-C-K S-T-A-R R-E-A-L B-I-T-C-H.

Armsmaster nodded. "All right. Understood. You're sure that they are the ones who put you in there?"

I-V-E B-E-E-N B-U-L-L-I-E-D F-O-R A Y-E-A-R I-T-S T-H-E-M.

"I see," he murmured. "Okay, then. As for your getting out of the locker … "

* * *

Bit by bit, he led me through the incident, up until I met Vicky. She was able to fill him in from there, cheerfully describing how she had failed to pull out in time, and ploughed into the ocean.

"Can _you_ do something about this?" Dad asked him, after we had gotten the narrative up to the point that Vicky and her aunt got me back to the house. "I mean, what those girls did, it's got to be a criminal act."

"I'm not the police, Mr Hebert," he told my father. "I can subdue and restrain normal criminals, but I have to hand them over to the normal police. I can't arrest them, and I can't perform normal criminal investigations. The PRT and Protectorate have enough to do with parahuman criminal activity as it is."

"So what _can_ you do?" Dad asked plaintively. "I'd go there myself, but apparently the teachers there have refined apathy to a fine art."

"I personally can't do much," Armsmaster replied. "The information can be passed on to the school principal. However, I can't actually guarantee that any action will be taken, now or later."

"Emma's father is a lawyer," Dad pointed out. "He might be the reason that they're letting her get away with so much."

"That could be the case," agreed Armsmaster. "Taylor, if you want to take a break now, I need to check in."

I nodded, and chirped in agreement. As Armsmaster headed outside, I turned to Vicky and indicated the sheet; she readied her notebook. H-O-T-S-H-O-W-E-R-T-O-R-E-L-A-X, I tapped out, forgetting to add in spaces. However, she was on the ball, and nodded thoughtfully.

"We can definitely try it," she agreed. "I'll get you some more clothes." A pause, and she grinned at me. "Try not to wreck these ones too, huh?"

I made the rudest noise that I could manage.

* * *

"So, are you still a dragon?"

I tried to ignore her, allowing the hot water to cascade over my scaled body. It felt good; not as good as it did when I was human, for instance, but still good. However, the temperature seemed to be a little on the low side; with the aid of my wrist, I managed to move the lever in the direction that I wanted it to go. The water pounded on my upturned muzzle; I let my jaws sag open so that the steaming torrent could trickle hot and delicious down my throat.

It was working, I could tell; the tensions were easing out of my body. Turning around, I let it cascade over my back; opening my wings a little, I could feel it drumming on the membranes between my body and my elbows. Standing forward, I moved my tail back and forth through the flow -

\- and abruptly, it was as though boiling oil was being poured over me. I yelped and ducked away from the scalding flow, feeling for the lever and slamming it all the way closed. The flow reluctantly petered out, leaving a stinging sensation across my backside.

"Ah-ha!" Vicky's triumphant voice sounded from beyond the steamed-over shower cubicle. "I hear the sound of one Taylor yelping."

"Ow. Shut up. Ow." I pulled open the cubicle door. "It worked, but apparently dragon me likes her showers in medium boiling."

"Ouch," she replied sympathetically as she handed me a towel. "Where'd you get burned?"

I turned around as I started drying my head and shoulders, to let her inspect the injured area. "Right on the butt. The universe hates me."

"Wow, that's _red._ That's not gonna be fun, sitting down."

"Oh, shut up." I flicked her with the towel.

"But at least you're human again."

"Yeah," I agreed gloomily. "I wonder how long I'll last this time?"

"What _I'm_ curious about," she added mischievously, "is what your body considers its natural form. When you go to bed, are you gonna wake up as a dragon or a human?"

"And here I was thinking the day was looking up."

"Yeah, _that's_ gonna happen."

"Shush, you."

* * *

" _Director Piggot speaking."_

" _ **Armsmaster here, Director."**_

" _Armsmaster. I was just wondering where you had gotten to. Have you made any headway on either of your cases?"_

" _ **Actually, I've more or less solved both of them."**_ _His voice held a perhaps excusable level of pride._

" _I'm impressed. How did you manage that?"_

" _ **Because they both involved the same person. A new Trigger, with a Changer ability. She was locked in her locker at Winslow, and Changed into … well, into a dragon. Human sized. According to her, she blew the locker door off with an explosive fireball. Then she escaped the school, where she encountered Glory Girl, who invited her home."**_

" _I … see. What's your assessment of this parahuman. A girl, you said?"_

" _ **Yes. Taylor Hebert. She's the owner of the locker. She seems to be a reasonably balanced individual, but her Changer ability isn't necessarily under her control. And her other form possesses a great deal of destructive potential."**_

" _These explosive fireballs you mentioned?"_

" _ **Plus a plasma jet that melted the head of my halberd and gave me a sunburn on the left side of my jaw."**_

 _Piggot paused for a long moment. "You …_ _ **fought**_ _… her?"_

" _ **It wasn't a fight, so much as things got a little out of hand, before Lady Photon stepped in. Nobody was hurt, and there was no property damage. Apart from my halberd."**_

" _I see. Well, what's the situation there now?"_

" _ **We're talking. I'm getting information. She can't talk, not in her Changed form, but we've found a workaround. But there is something that you do need to know."**_

 _The Director sighed. There was always something new. "Yes?"_

" _ **She has positively identified Sophia Hess and Emma Barnes as two of the individuals who forced her into the locker. Gave enough of a description of Hess that she can't be mistaken. Says that Hess has been bullying her for a year."**_

" _Sophia Hess," repeated Piggot. "Shadow Stalker."_

" _ **Yes. I thought you should know."**_

" _And she caused this girl to trigger."_

" _ **Yes."**_

" _Christ. Right, leave it with me. One more thing."_

" _ **Yes, ma'am?"**_

" _What's your assessment of this girl's chances of assimilating with the Wards?"_

 _There was a pause, then he replied._ _ **"With a few minor problems ironed out, she could be a definite asset."**_

" _One of those problems being her erratic Changer ability?"_

" _ **Yes, ma'am. The other is that, immediately after she Changes to, uh, dragon form, she seems to act instinctively at first. I – she was under stress when we came face to face, and she Changed, and went directly into a threat display that nearly precipitated a fight."**_

" _And she attacked you with this plasma jet?"_

" _ **Not … as such. I had my halberd out, to demonstrate that I was willing to meet force with force, and she targeted it, and destroyed the head, utterly."**_

" _Do you think she was aiming for it?"_

" _ **I think it a strong possibility. Absolutely nothing else was hit. Including me. And I was**_ **holding** ** _it."_**

" _Can you replace it?"_

" _ **I have several spares. I'll just have to bring one of them up to scratch."**_

" _Good. In the meantime, keep me updated on this dragon girl. And work on a proper cape name for her. 'Dragon' is already taken, of course."_

" _ **Well, it's not like there are many other dragon-themed capes around. I think she'll be spoiled for choice."**_

" _True. And if you think she's even vaguely suited for the Wards, try to get her in. We need the manpower. And we don't need more teenage independents roaming the streets. Especially ones who can melt steel by breathing on it."_

" _ **Understood, ma'am. I'll keep you posted."**_

 _Piggot hung up, and ran her hands over her face._

 _ **God almighty. Dragons in Brockton Bay. What next?**_

* * *

Armsmaster was back inside by the time that Vicky and I descended the stairs once more. I was once more wearing the spare glasses Dad had brought over. The soothing cream on my butt seemed to be doing its job, but Vicky seemed to be unable to look at me without giggling. I knew what the joke was – as a dragon, I had melted Armsmaster's halberd. As a human, I had burned my own butt in the shower – but I really didn't think it was all that funny.

"You're human again," he observed, as I came into view.

 _Thank you, Captain Obvious._ "Uh, yeah. I had an idea about having a hot shower, and it worked."

Dad rose to come hug me; I returned the favour as Armsmaster kept talking. "So you've got the Changing problem fixed?"

"Not necessarily a _perfect_ fix," I allowed. "Call it a work in progress. And we've still got the problem that I go through more outfits than, well, a Brute with anger problems."

"Hulk smash," Dad muttered as he went to sit down again; I didn't get the reference.

"Well, in any case," the armoured hero continued as Vicky gestured me into her chair, and perched on the arm, "we need to talk about your powers."

"What _about_ them?" I asked. "If I can stay out of high-stress situations, they don't activate. Unfortunately, one day at Winslow is all the Bitches need to set up something that will drive my blood pressure through the roof. And if I ignore them or don't react, they come back with something even worse, to _force_ me to react."

"That's a problem that can be addressed," Armsmaster noted. "But right now, I'm pegging your Changed form as Mover, Blaster and Brute. Exact numbers to be assigned later, with testing, if you're up to it."

"Wait, wait," Vicky protested. "Mover, sure. Blaster, definitely. But Brute? She couldn't even rip her way out of that locker."

"You forget, I have all the files on that locker, right here," he informed her, tapping his helmet. "She didn't burn the locker door off; she _blew_ it off. With a fireball that exploded _inside_ the locker, within _inches_ of her own body, spraying fire in all directions, hot enough to damage the floor and set fire to the ceiling and the wall behind. She withstood the concussive blast within the locker, and the attendant fire, without suffering appreciable harm."

I raised a tentative hand. He nodded in my direction. "Uh, when I was having the shower," I ventured. "As a dragon, I felt that the water just wasn't warm enough. I took it all the way up to as hot as it would go without feeling any particular discomfort." I carefully didn't explain what had happened when I had gone back to being human, under that scalding spray.

"Well, it makes sense that you would be resistant to heat," he agreed. "It remains to be seen, however, whether you are resistant to any explosive effect, or just ones that _you_ generate."

"Or maybe she just gets better," Lady Photon observed. "Taylor, when I first saw you chasing Victoria, I shot you with a laser bolt. I haven't seen any sign of injury on you."

I frowned. "That stung for a little bit, then stopped. I kind of forgot about it. A lot's happened since."

"Well, in that case, some level of regeneration seems to be indicated." Armsmaster nodded. "So, Changer with Brute, Mover and Blaster capabilities. So far, you've made use of two different types of breath weapon. Do you have any more?"

"I have no idea." I shrugged. "I didn't know I could do either one till I needed to. I guess I could work at figuring what else I can do with breathing fire, and see if I could make it work."

"Make sure you have a good solid backstop," he advised me. "Actually, we have excellent facilities for just this sort of thing in the PRT building. It's _designed_ for people flinging high-end attacks around."

I tilted my head. "Maybe. We'll see how it goes. Right now, my _bigger_ problem is my unmatched capability for destroying clothes every time I Change. At this rate, I'll be all out by tomorrow night."

"The PRT has many contacts among the parahuman community," he responded. "Say the word, and we'll find a Tinker who can do the job of creating clothes that you don't lose when you Change."

"And I'm guessing that the 'word' is agreement to join the Wards?" Mrs Pelham sat up from where she'd been leaning back. "Don't think I haven't noticed your hints."

"Yeah, nope," Vicky protested, putting her arm around my shoulders. "If she goes into a superteam, it should be with us. Because we're awesome, and so is Taylor."

"The PRT can help you get a handle on your powers, Taylor," argued Armsmaster.

I shook my head. "No, I don't think so."

Dad turned to me, looking puzzled. "What? Why? It sounds like a great deal."

"I can't explain it, Dad," I told him. "When we were on the beach below the Boardwalk, Vicky asked me if I wanted to go out to the Protectorate base, and they could investigate what's happened to me. But I don't want to be poked. I don't want to be prodded. And I've got this feeling that once I get signed in there, I can be _ordered_ to allow them to poke and prod me."

"Is that true?" Dad asked, turning to Armsmaster.

"She's a danger to the public as she is," the armoured hero replied evasively. "All it takes is for one person to stress her enough to Change in public, and then her cover is blown. Not to mention the people who might get hurt, either through panic, or if someone in the crowd has been getting in her face, and she reacts automatically, and turns him into a charcoal briquette."

"I _aimed_ at your halberd," I informed him bluntly. "That threat display, yeah, that was me on autopilot. But the rest of it? All me."

"That was a very valuable piece of equipment," he told me. "You're still liable for its destruction."

"You had it out, and you were threatening me with it," I retorted, as steadily as I could. "I took care of the threat in as non-harmful a way as I could manage."

"You could have just surrendered to lawful authority," he pointed out. "You would have been treated well."

"Hell with that," I shot back. "I've _had_ it with all this bullshit. You automatically assumed that I blew up my locker deliberately. You didn't ask why. _Lady Photon_ asked why."

* * *

" _I still think that if you go into the Wards, the PRT can handle any legal problems, in case your powers cause some level of damage in public. Also, we have access to people with professional training in dealing with problematic powers."_

 _She shook her head. "Poking and prodding. Not a fan."_

" _Then where will you go?" he asked. "It's not a good place for an independent out there, right now. And you have the twin troubles that if you go out as human, you have to bank on being able to Change to dragon form at a moment's notice. If you go out as dragon, then it's really obvious as to who you are."_

 _She paused, and he thought that perhaps she had seen reason. But then Lady Photon broke in. "That's easy. She can join New Wave."_

 _Everyone looked at her. Even Flashbang stared at her for a moment._

" _Oh,_ _ **hell**_ _yes!" exclaimed Glory Girl. "We'll be the only team in town with a dragon! The others will be_ _ **so**_ _damn jealous."_

 _Lady Photon smiled gently. "That's not_ _ **exactly**_ _the reason for the offer, dear," she told her niece. "But it seems to me that Taylor might need a helping hand. Plus, her powers could be extremely useful at the right time and place." She turned to the Hebert girl. "What do you say, Taylor? Want to join New Wave?"_

" _Uh, do I have to tell everyone who I am, and who my dad is?" the girl asked._

" _Well, just show up in your dragon form, and you'll never need a mask," Glory Girl pointed out cheerfully._

" _Danny isn't a cape, and revealing your name would put his at risk," Lady Photon mused. "And you're just as vulnerable when you're not in your Changed form. I think we can make an amendment to the rules for your case; you won't wear a mask, but you'll only show the public your dragon form."_

" _Wyvern," Flashbang commented unexpectedly._

" _What?" asked the Hebert girl. "Uh, Mr Dallon."_

 _Flashbang looked at them all. "A dragon with two legs and two wings is called a wyvern, not a dragon. It's a mythology thing." He subsided back into silence._

 _The Hebert girl looked at her father and shrugged. "It's as good a name as any. Wyvern it is."_

" _I'll have to check to make sure that it isn't already taken," Armsmaster pointed out._

" _Well, if it is, I'll find something else," she decided. "And yeah, I think I'd like to join New Wave. If the others don't mind, that is."_

 _Glory Girl laughed out loud. "Mind? Ames will be_ _ **so**_ _damn jealous that I met you first."_

 _Lady Photon smiled, and reached out to take Taylor's hand. "Welcome to New Wave," she told the girl._

 _Director Piggot, Armsmaster knew, would not be happy. But at least the girl was joining an actual, established team._

 _That had to count for_ _ **something.**_

* * *

End of Part Five


	6. Chapter 6

**Wyvern**

* * *

Part Six: Meddle Not in the Affairs of Dragons ...

* * *

Armsmaster paused in the doorway. "You're certain that you want to join New Wave." His voice held what I took to be a note of hope, that I might say no.

"Totally," I told him. "They're nice people. And they don't want to poke and prod and scan me." _Unlike you,_ I didn't have to say.

"You've only _met_ two of them," he protested. Dad cleared his throat, and motioned toward Flashbang on the sofa, still watching TV; he'd muted it for us, but was otherwise ignoring the discussion. "All right, three."

"And I like all of them. Which, to be absolutely honest … " I paused. "I mean, I don't _dis_ like you, and I think you're a great hero and all, but really, I still think that you're at least partly to blame for me melting your halberd like that."

Reminded of that particular incident, he glanced at the now-cooled blob of metal that adorned what had been perhaps the single most respected weapon in the city. His tone was a good bit cooler when he replied. "Just be aware, Miss Hebert, that destruction of property is still an offence. Your powers when in, uh, wyvern form are quite dangerous. Take care that you don't abuse them."

"I beg your pardon, Armsmaster?" I heard from behind him. "Did I just hear you use an intimidating turn of phrase toward a freshly-triggered parahuman?"

He turned and looked; I saw, standing on the path, a woman with similar features to Lady Photon, dressed in a suit and holding a briefcase. It didn't take me very long to connect the dots; this would be Vicky's mother, Carol Dallon, otherwise known as Brandish. Superhero and lawyer at the same time; I was fairly certain that no-one directed death threats at her for failing to get them off their charges.

"Uh, no, Mrs Dallon," he replied. "She did destroy my halberd, as well as being the precipitate cause of a certain amount of damage at her high school. Her powers are obviously quite destructive, if used recklessly. I was merely cautioning her to that effect."

"I'd be interested in hearing her side of the matter before you made any more comments of that nature," she replied dismissively. "If she triggered just today, then trigger events can cover quite a lot. If you don't mind?"

Hastily, he stepped aside, and she entered the house. "Vicky," she greeted her daughter. "You're home early. And Sarah. What brings you here?"

"Vicky and Taylor, to be honest, Carol," Sarah replied, crossing to where her sister stood and giving her a hug. "Taylor was flying over the city, Vicky heard about it and went to investigate. She ended up inviting her home, and I encountered them on the way there."

Mrs Dallon looked at me, her face expressionless. "So you're Taylor. The dragon girl."

"Yes, ma'am," I agreed, with a nod. "Taylor Hebert. I'm pleased to meet you." I put out my hand; after a moment, she shook it briefly, then looked at Dad. "And you are … ?"

"Uh, Danny Hebert, ma'am," he replied. "I'm her father. Lady Photon called me in, as soon as they had Taylor settled."

"I see." She looked me over again. "You don't seem to be exhibiting many dragon-like qualities, Taylor. Do you need to Change?"

"Uh, kind of," I admitted. "But not right here, please."

"It wrecks her clothes, Mom," Vicky explained. "She's been through two outfits since she got here."

"To be precise," Dad added, "she's on her third outfit since she got here. And I'm guessing another one got destroyed in the locker."

"Locker?" Mrs Dallon looked puzzled. "Where does a locker come into it?" She turned to me. "Is this to do with your trigger event?"

"Uh, yes," I replied. "Some girls at my school locked me in my locker with some really horrible stuff."

"What sort of horrible stuff?" asked Mrs Dallon, then immediately held up her hand. "Wait, let me sit down first. I suspect that I'm going to need to take notes on this."

"I've recorded everything," Armsmaster told her. "I can - "

"- leave now," she advised him sweetly. "I've got this, thanks."

"I really think -"

"No, Armsmaster," she cut him off, her voice never losing the sweet tone, " _I_ really think it's time for you to go." She turned to me. "There is the strong potential for a lawsuit here, Taylor. Would you like me to represent you, or help you find a suitable representative?"

"I, uh -" I began.

Dad spoke at the same time. "Lawsuit?"

"Yes," she answered. "Against whoever locked you in that locker."

"The PRT has lawyers -" began Armsmaster.

"The PRT also has self-interest," Mrs Dallon shot back. "Taylor?"

I blinked, and glanced at Dad. He looked at Mrs Dallon. "We can't afford much -"

"Money won't be a problem," Mrs Dallon assured him. "Not with the sort of damages we could get out of whoever did this to you, and probably the school as well."

After a moment, Dad nodded. "Okay. Taylor?"

"Uh, sure," I replied. "But I don't want anyone hurt too badly. Financially, I mean."

"As badly as they hurt you emotionally?" asked Mrs Dallon. "How long has this been going on?"

"Since September of the year before last," I admitted.

"Really?" Her eyes narrowed. "Then there's a lot of leeway between 'not badly enough' and 'too badly', isn't there?"

"I … guess," I agreed tentatively.

"Good," she stated briskly. "So, do you accept me as your attorney until further notice?"

I nodded. "I - yes. Yes, I do."

"Excellent." Reaching into her handbag, she pulled out what I presumed to be some kind of recorder. "I am now recording. Armsmaster, I'm invoking attorney-client privileges. Please leave. This is out of your hands."

He tried one more time. "She's a potentially dangerous parahuman -"

"That's not the issue at stake here," she snapped. "The issue is that these girls saw fit to bully her until she _became_ a potentially dangerous parahuman, and the school saw fit to let them do it. So will you be leaving, or will I be reporting you for harassing my client after you were asked to leave?"

It was obvious that he didn't want to go, but she hadn't left him any leeway. So, reluctantly, he stepped out through the doorway, and walked to his bike.

* * *

Mrs Dallon waited until the sound of the motorcycle had faded into the distance before she turned to me. "I'm going to need all the details," she told me. "Your locker, Armsmaster's halberd, anything else that you may have damaged -" She paused. "The lawn. There was a line of black spots on the lawn. Was that you?"

Vicky went over to the door and peered out. "Oh my god," she reported, her voice full of horrified delight. "Taylor, you have to see this."

I went to look; there was indeed a line of black spots on the lawn. Each of them consisted of a lump of metal, surrounded by a circle of blackened, burned grass. The line stretched directly away from the door, petering out before it quite got to the curb.

"Uh, yeah, that was me," I admitted sheepishly. "That's bits of his halberd, I guess."

Mrs Dallon was looking up at the doorframe. "The paint's scorched here," she noted.

I looked also. "Uh, yes. The flame jet kind of came pretty close. I think it may have also given him a sunburn. And singed his beard."

"Well, I'm quite impressed that you managed to destroy the halberd with such precision, and _without_ burning down the house," she observed, "but please, for everyone's sakes, employ a little more discretion in future. Specifically, no insurance company in the country is willing to cover us for parahuman-related damage, so don't breathe fire inside my house. Ever again."

I nodded meekly. "No, ma'am, I won't. If I'm going to be a part of the team, I know -"

"- wait just a moment," she interrupted me. "Part of the team?"

"Well, yeah, Mom," Vicky explained. "She's a new cape, she's a _dragon_ -"

"Uh, wyvern, apparently," I pointed out.

"Still a type of dragon," Vicky forged on relentlessly. "Big scaly wings, and she breathes fire, and she looks all kinds of totally awesome. I mean, how can we _not_ have her on the team?"

"Sarah?" asked Mrs Dallon. "Do you support this idea?"

"Actually, yes, I do," Lady Photon told her. "Taylor needs team support. For one thing, she can't enunciate English words while in wyvern form. For another, she can't do anything that requires really fine manipulation."

"All right then, that changes matters a little," Mrs Dallon decided. "Legally speaking, Taylor, I shouldn't really be acting both as your attorney in this matter as well as your teammate."

"So what does this mean?" asked Dad.

"Either I take a temporary leave of absence from the team, so I can concentrate on the case," she informed us, "or I refer your case on to someone else."

"Whatever happens, it's going to come out that I'm a parahuman, right?"

"Unless we concentrate on the bullying angle and leave the parahuman aspect out of it altogether," she agreed. "Which would weaken our case, but not too badly ... wait. You're joining New Wave anyway, aren't you, Taylor?"

"She is," Lady Photon assured her, "but she wants to keep her human identity secret for her father's sake."

"She won't be wearing a mask as Wyvern," Vicky put in. "It's just that they won't know who she is when she's _not_ Wyvern."

"I'm not sure I'm totally on board with that," Mrs Dallon observed. "After all, transparency _is_ what the New Wave concept was founded upon."

"I'm pretty sure that Lightstar would argue about the validity of that," Lady Photon pointed out gently.

Mrs Dallon's expression hardened. "Fleur's situation was different."

"This is true," Lady Photon pointed out. "Fleur was powered, as are the rest of us. She still died."

"Our children weren't -"

"And if you don't see what a huge risk we were running at the time, then you need to think some more about it," Lady Photon snapped. "Danny has no powers, and nor does he live with someone who does."

"Taylor -" began Mrs Dallon.

"- either has no powers at all, or looks entirely inhuman. And her Change is sufficiently unreliable that she can't guarantee to have access to her powers, even if she really needs them, or if someone catches her by surprise."

"So why can't she go to the Protectorate?" asked Mrs Dallon. "It seems to me that they're better set up for this than we are."

I cleared my throat. "Still here," I reminded the both of them. "For one thing, I'm scared that the PRT will prod me and poke me and scan me, and then decide that I'm too dangerous and lock me away or something."

Lady Photon glanced at Mrs Dallon. "Not _entirely_ an unwarranted fear, you have to admit."

"No," Mrs Dallon admitted after a moment. "It's not. Though you're not saying everything, Taylor."

I nodded. "For another thing, I don't _want_ to. I mean, in human form, I've got no real problem with it, but when Vicky suggested it and I was in wyvern form, I just knew somehow that I really, really didn't want to do it."

"Hm." Mrs Dallon rubbed her chin. "Well, if you don't want to, then you don't want to. It might be some sort of instinctual thing. In any case, I wouldn't force anyone to be in the Wards who didn't want to be."

"So she can be in New Wave?" Vicky's voice was hopeful.

"About the secret identity thing?" Mrs Dallon looked at Lady Photon.

"Well, given that there's the presence of a non-powered family member, plus a certain unreliability about the availability of your powers, and the fact that you're pretty well unable to hide who you are once you become the wyvern form … " Lady Photon paused. "I think I can amend the rules in this particular case."

"That sounds reasonable," Mrs Dallon agreed. "Very well. Taylor, you'll be joining New Wave, but will not be revealing your real identity. So the lawsuit will be specifically to do with your being shut in the locker."

" … which could pose a problem," I told her.

"What problem?" she asked.

"I _blew up_ my locker. The door ended up jammed in the far wall. I set the school on fire. If we're going to separate the fact of my being locked in the locker from the fact of my being Wyvern, how do we present it? I was locked in my locker, which was then blown up by persons unknown?"

"Worse," Dad pointed out. "More than one person knows that Taylor was in that damn locker. It's got to be the most open secret in Winslow by now. Half of them must think that she got out and then blew it up, while the other half have to be thinking that the locker was blown up with her in it."

"True," she agreed, brow furrowed. "The explosion and fire are inseparable from the fact that Taylor was locked in the locker."

"Okay, how about this?" asked Vicky. "Taylor is in the locker. Someone lets her out. She staggers away to get clean, and the person who let her out sets off a bomb in her locker."

"Which begs the question of who let her out, and why did they explode the bomb?" Mrs Dallon had a pen and paper, and was writing as she spoke.

"Hey, I can't think of everything," Vicky protested. "Taylor?"

"We can't make Wyvern out to be the bad guy either," I decided. "Even misunderstood. I've read enough on the PHO boards to know that once a hero gets even the slightest hint of impropriety, it sticks with him for years. Plus, it'll reflect on New Wave's reputation."

"In any case, we need a narrative that diverges as little from the truth as possible," explained Mrs Dallon. "Whatever we say has to be supported by the available evidence."

"Which all points to me blowing up the locker," I groaned. "Because I _did."_

"So, our only real options for a lawsuit are, on the one hand, out Taylor and run the whole deal through the courts, which will almost certainly nail their hides to whatever wall we see fit," Dad summarised, "or minimise the locker thing, and try to get them for whatever they did to her _before_ that point."

"What happened today certainly brings it all together," Lady Photon agreed. "Without it … they get away with a truly horrible act, and they _may_ get away with the rest of it, depending on the throw weight of whatever legal talent they get on their side."

"Great," I muttered, "and Mr Barnes is a lawyer too."

"I beg your pardon?" asked Mrs Dallon. "Did you say 'Mr Barnes'?"

I nodded. "Alan Barnes. Emma's dad. Emma used to be my best friend. Mr Barnes and Dad have known each other forever."

"If he knows about what she's been doing to my girl, and hasn't done anything about it, then I don't know him nearly as well as I thought I did," Dad observed, mainly to himself.

"Really. That's very interesting." Mrs Dallon made a note. "Alan Barnes and I work for the same law firm."

Dad and I stared at her. "Uh, is that a good thing or a bad thing?" I asked carefully.

She considered the question. "That depends. Probably a good thing. I'll have to see."

"Wouldn't that be some kind of conflict of interest?" asked Dad. "If you're both working for the same people, that is."

"As I said," Mrs Dallon told him, "I'll have to see." She looked around. "Now, I think it best if we took this to my study."

"Can I come?" asked Vicky. "I promise I'll be quiet."

Personally, I had my doubts.

"Sorry, Vicky," Mrs Dallon replied. "We're going to be discussing important information about the case."

Vicky rolled her eyes. "Aww."

"Don't complain too loudly, young lady, or I might find myself compelled to ask you why you aren't back at school already," Mrs Dallon warned her.

"Being quiet." Vicky hastened toward the kitchen.

"Good." Mrs Dallon turned to Dad and me. "Shall we go?"

* * *

"Take a chair, each of you. This might take a while."

Following Mrs Dallon's directive, I sat in one of the chairs in front of her desk. Dad sat beside me.

Putting the recorder back on the desk, she pressed the button. "Carol Dallon, recording," she stated out loud. "Now, Taylor, this is very important. Can you identify your assailants?"

I hesitated. "I can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was them, but I'm pretty damn certain."

"What makes you so certain?" she asked.

"Because they've been making my life hell for the past fourteen months," I snapped. "It's the same three, over and over, and if it's not them, it's one of their friends." My voice had risen, and I could hear the bitterness in it. I took a breath. "Sorry. But it just keeps happening, and nothing ever stops it."

"Can you at least state with certainty that they were there?" Her voice was almost gentle, and I realised that this must be how she treated her witnesses on the stand.

"Oh god yes. They were right there, making comments about my height and weight, and how I must throw up to stay so skinny, and how I must have thrown up just then, because of the smell."

"Which was whatever in your locker?" She paused. "What _was_ in the locker, exactly?"

I drew a deep breath, and took Dad's hand. He squeezed it reassuringly. "A lot of rotten tampons and sanitary pads from the girls' bathrooms. But I didn't know that then. All I knew was that something stank."

"All right, so these girls – all of them are girls, right? – what are their names?"

"Yeah, they're all girls. Some boys are in on it, but they're just hangers-on. The three main ones are Emma Barnes, like I said, as well as Madison Clements and Sophia Hess."

"Armsmaster seemed really interested in that last one, Sophia Hess," Dad commented. "He asked if Taylor was sure."

"Yeah, I noticed that, too," I agreed. "I wanted to ask about that, but I was a wyvern right then."

"Really?" asked Mrs Dallon. "But you're non-verbal in that form, aren't you? How were you communicating?"

"Vicky brought out a plastic sheet with the alphabet, and I picked out letters on it," I explained. "It was slow, but we made it work."

Mrs Dallon nodded. "Very clever. So Armsmaster was interested in this Sophia Hess, was he?"

"It sure seemed that way," I agreed. "I don't know why."

"I'll make a point of asking him, next time I see him. Now, Emma Barnes is definitely the daughter of Alan Barnes? Big man, red haired?"

"That's him," I told her. "She's got red hair too."

Mrs Dallon's eyes were focused on me. "Okay. So you're telling me that the daughter of Alan Barnes, a man I work with, is bullying you, _has_ bullied you badly enough to cause a trigger event?"

"That's exactly what we're telling you, yes." Dad's voice was steady, but he squeezed my hand again. "I thought he was a friend. Now, I'm not so sure."

"That would depend on if he knows about it, surely," she observed. "Do you know, one way or the other?"

"He's friendly enough when we meet," Dad mused. "Talks about Emma. Asks about Taylor."

"But you and Emma haven't been friends for a while?" She looked toward me.

"For more than a year," I agreed. "For all I know, she's telling him that I broke up the friendship, not her."

"We can't use that in court," she cautioned me. "Conjecture holds no weight as evidence." She looked to me. "What sort of bullying has it been? Physical? Emotional? Verbal?"

"All of that and more," I sighed. "You name it, they've done it. Sophia handles the physical side of things, tripping me down stairs or in the hallways, things like that. Madison's good at pranks. Leaving juice on my chair, dumping pencil shavings on my desk during class. Emma knows all my secrets, all the ways to hurt me, and she uses them."

"Physical abuse." She zeroed in on that. "Do you have proof? Bruises? Scars?"

My voice was full of regret. "Nothing visible."

"Damn." She leaned back in her chair.

Tentatively, I cleared my throat. "I've been keeping a sort of journal."

"What?" She leaned forward. "A journal?"

"Kind of a list of what they've been doing to me. Since the start of school last year," I explained. "I wanted to try to get the teachers to listen, to help, but they never did. So I haven't shown anyone."

"What's in this journal of yours?" she asked.

"Uh, day by day of what they did. All dated. Emails I got sent, by them and by others. Stuff that was sent from the school computers, during school hours. I've spent _hours_ printing them out."

Dad was looking at me. I looked back. "What?"

"Why didn't you show this to _me,_ Taylor?" he asked. "Tell me about it. I could have done _something_."

"The school doesn't do anything, even when it happens right in front of a teacher," I told him bitterly. "I'm the weird loner. They're the popular kids. That would just have gotten me more attention, and not of the good type."

"Then you could have told me about Emma," he protested. "I could have spoken to Alan."

"And said what, exactly? That I said she was bullying me? All she has to say is no, she's not. And she could pull a dozen alibis out of her pocket."

"All right, this is what's going to happen, Taylor," Mrs Dallon stated. "Once Winslow opens again, you're going to go back to school, as if nothing happened. Nothing _will_ happen to you, because the PRT doesn't out new parahumans. The story will be something along the lines of a gas leak. You were never in the locker."

"How do you know that about the PRT?" asked Dad.

"Because we've assisted in this sort of cover-up before," she told us briskly. "So, Taylor. Pretend that nothing happened. But carry a voice recorder. I have a spare. Record any time that someone's giving you any sort of trouble. Identify them by name on the recording. In the meantime, I'll need your journal, so I can start building a case."

"So we're skipping the locker." Dad didn't make it a question.

"We're skipping the locker," she agreed.

"Uh, about school," I began.

"About school?" She looked at me. "What about school?"

"My powers," I pointed out. "If they corner me and start working on me, I'll out myself in less than a minute."

"Hmm." She bit her lip, and switched off the recorder. "Explain."

"I, uh, still don't have much in the way of control over my Changer ability. So far, all my changes into wyvern form have been pretty well involuntary." I paused. "Vicky's seen them; she can help explain."

"Very well." She rose and went to the door. "Vicky, could you please come in here a moment?"

Vicky didn't quite cause a sonic boom with her arrival, but she got there pretty quickly, anyway. "What's up, Mom?"

"We're discussing Taylor's Changer ability. She says she doesn't have much in the way of control over them. Is this true?"

"Uh, sure," Vicky agreed. "I didn't see the first one, but I saw all the ones after that."

"So what happened with the first one?" Mrs Dallon's eyes were intent; I was very aware of the notepad.

"They locked me in my locker. You know what was in there with me. I must have triggered pretty quickly. I tried to claw the door open, but I couldn't. So I blew it off the locker with an explosive fireball. Which blew up my locker plus the lockers on either side, and damaged the lockers on either side of that."

Mrs Dallon made notes. "What did you do then?"

"I got out of there and flew toward the ocean. The second time that I changed -"

"Wait," Mrs Dallon interrupted. "You didn't go after your tormentors?"

"Uh, no," I confirmed. "I wasn't really thinking about that. I just wanted to get the mess off my legs. So I flew to the ocean."

"Right. So tell me about the second time you Changed."

"Uh, Mom, that _was_ sort of my fault," confessed Vicky. "She told me how she first changed, and I wanted to see if my fear aura could do the trick."

"Which it does," I pointed out. "Very dramatically. Mind you, I kind of destroyed the clothes I was wearing at the time." I wrinkled my nose at her; she cheerfully ignored it.

"I see," Mrs Dallon replied, raising an eyebrow. "Did you damage anything other than your clothes when this happened?"

I looked at Vicky; she looked back at me. "Uh, not that I know of," I confessed. "Vicky?"

"No, you just changed," she agreed. "Though the look on your face … "

"I was a dragon at the time. _What_ look on my face?"

"The 'oh crap, I'm a dragon again' look." She snickered. "It was _priceless._ Though the look when your dad called out was even better, I have to admit."

Mrs Dallon cleared her throat sharply; we both looked at her. _"As_ I was saying," she went on. "You say that no damage was done the second time. What about the third time? What happened then?"

"Armsmaster happened," supplied Lady Photon, leaning in the doorway. "He accused Taylor of trying to burn down Winslow -"

"- not that it wouldn't be an improvement," I muttered.

"Taylor, _did_ you actually try to burn down Winslow?" asked Mrs Dallon.

"Uh, no. I just wanted out of that locker." I pointed at Vicky and Lady Photon. "Ask them. If I wanted to really set fire to something, it would still be on fire. Right?"

Vicky nodded vigorously. "Mom, you didn't see her melt Armsmaster's halberd. It was _awesome."_

"I have to agree – not about the 'awesome' part, but about her capabilities," Lady Photon commented. "If she had truly wanted to set fire to Winslow, it would still be very much aflame."

"So the fire that did happen was due to your … " Mrs Dallon checked her notebook. " … explosive fireball, right."

"That's right, yes," I agreed.

"Hmm, good." She wrote a few words, then looked up again. "All right. It sounds very much like your Changer ability is stress-based, as you've no doubt worked out for yourself."

"I _had_ pretty well figured that, yes." I tried not to make it sound sarcastic.

If she took it as such, she ignored it. "I'd suggest taking the week off, if the school isn't closed that long. Work to learn control over your power. Learn the signs of an upcoming change, see if you can't head it off. Once you can avoid Changing in a stressful environment, then go back to school." She paused, and smiled slightly. "Because trust me, even though setting fire to them might feel really good in the short run, it won't help much in the long run."

"Wow, Mom, was that a _joke?"_ Vicky's eyes were wide. "Holy crap, Mom made a funny. Wait till I tell Ames."

"It wasn't _that_ funny, Vicky," Mrs Dallon told her reprovingly, but her heart wasn't really in it. "Now, Taylor."

"Uh, yes, ma'am?" I asked.

"I'm going to want to see your, uh, wyvern form at some point. I suggest that you and Vicky go somewhere so that you can work on your power control."

"Sure thing, Mom," Vicky agreed at once, grabbing my hand. "Come on, Taylor."

"And I need to make a phone call, so if you can entertain Danny a little longer for me, Sarah?" asked Mrs Dallon.

"I can do that," Lady Photon responded, stepping aside as Vicky more or less dragged me from the study. "Another cup of tea, Mr Hebert?"

"Don't mind if I do, Mrs Pelham," he replied gravely.

* * *

Vicky paused at the bottom of the stairs, and raised her voice. "All right, power testing in progress. No-one goes into my room, okay?"

"We hear you, dear," replied Lady Photon's voice. "No-one's going to barge in."

"And what are we going to do, exactly?" I asked.

"We'll think of something." Vicky tugged at my hand. "C'mon."

I resisted momentarily. "Not that damn fear aura again, okay?"

"Chicken." But she was grinning as she said it. "Okay, fine, no aura."

"I'll give _you_ 'chicken'," I muttered, but followed her anyway.

* * *

" _This is Franklin Rogers. Make it quick."_

 _ **"Mr Rogers, it's Carol Dallon."**_

 _"Carol?" He frowned. "This is not a good time for you to be away from the office."_

" _ **It's never going to be a good time, sir."**_

" _No, seriously, someone set fire to Winslow High, and three different people had to go and pick up their kids. Now there's rumours about terrorist plots to firebomb all the schools in Brockton Bay. Why did you head out anyway? You don't even have any kids at Winslow."_

 _ **"It was a family matter."**_

" _By family matter, do you mean ordinary family matter, or your type of family matter?"_

" _ **Actually, as it happens, sir, both."**_

 _He waited, but she didn't explain farther. "Okay, if you say so. What's up? Why are you calling me?"_

 _ **"I want to warn you of a potential conflict of interest within the firm."**_

 _That got his attention. "What sort of a conflict of interest?"_

" _ **I'm likely to be going head to head with another employee of the firm regarding a lawsuit I'm looking to pursue."**_

" _Who is it?"_

" _ **I'm sorry, sir. I can't tell you that quite yet. Once I've got the paperwork filed, I'll get the appropriate details to you. This is more in the nature of a heads-up."**_

" _Very well, I'll tell you this for free, Carol. You can pursue outside cases, so long as they don't impinge on the firm's business. If you're going against another member of the firm, then both of you are on your own. You can use our facilities, but we won't support either one against the other."_

" _ **That's fine, sir. I have no problem with that."**_

" _However, before it comes to that, perhaps mediation could be attempted first. It would look bad in the papers if two of our members started squaring off in the courts."_

" _ **Normally I would not argue with that, sir, but this is a case for damages. Quite extensive damages, I'm afraid."**_

" _Is this likely to bring the other person's good name into question?"_

" _ **If that person chooses not to settle out of court, this is quite likely, sir."**_

" _And the name of the firm?"_

" _ **Won't come into it, sir."**_

" _Hmm. Thank you, Carol."_

" _ **Thank you for hearing me out, sir."**_

" _You're one of our best people. Don't go biting off more than you can chew."_

" _ **I'll try not to, sir."**_ _There was a faint noise in the background, one that he couldn't identify._ _ **"Ah, I have to go, sir. I'll let you know more when I find out."**_

" _You do that."_

* * *

"Okay, what happens now?" I asked Vicky, after she closed the door to her room.

"Well, first, you take your clothes off," she explained, in a very matter-of-fact tone.

" _Vicky!"_ I protested, blushing scarlet. "Seriously? No!"

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Taylor. Every other time you've Changed into your dragon form -"

" - wyvern," I corrected her.

"Okay, wyvern," she agreed. "Anyway, every time you've Changed, you've lost all the clothes you're wearing. So, take 'em off first and you don't have to worry about that."

"Well, give me something to put around myself," I objected. "I know you've already seen me naked -"

"- couldn't really avoid it, to be honest," she agreed cheerfully. "But you don't have to worry about me making moves on your skinny butt. I'm interested in guys first, last and always."

"Best news I've heard all day," I replied, reluctantly beginning to remove the clothing which she had given to me. "Get me a towel or something?"

"Sure, here you go." She handed me a hand towel.

I looked it over. It would cover my front, or my back, but not both at the same time. "Oh, very funny."

"Actually, I have a theory," she proposed. "If we don't cover you up, maybe the discomfort and stress will cause you to change back into the dragon?"

"That's a stupid theory," I told her. "And anyway, it's a wyvern. Come on, give me a real towel." I shivered as I began to remove the last of my borrowed clothing; her room was warm, so it must have been a psychological effect.

"Huh. Your butt's looking better from that burn, earlier."

I twisted, trying to get a look at the site of the burn. "Huh, so it is."

"Good thing, too," she grinned. "You might have gotten all butt-hurt over it."

I stuck out my tongue at her. "That was a terrible joke. Now stop looking at my butt and get me a real towel." I held up the hand towel between me and her; it made a great apron, or about half of one of those draughty hospital gowns.

"If you can turn into a dragon," she pointed out, "you won't need a real towel. Now come on, concentrate. You can do it. Make the Change. Show your powers who's boss."

"Wyvern." I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to hold the towel in place. Uncomfortable, I definitely was. This definitely had points in common with the other times I had Changed.

 _Huh, maybe Vicky's got the right idea after all._

I began to concentrate, to form an idea in my head of what it was like to _be_ the wyvern – or, if it was to be my cape name, the Wyvern – and try to slot myself into it. It wasn't easy; the effort was not unlike attempting to pick myself up by my own shoelaces. The discomfort was indeed helping; with the lack of comfort came increased focus. At that moment, I desperately wanted to Change into the wyvern form, if only to get rid of the goosebumps that were now decorating me in plague proportions.

It was there, I could almost feel it. All I needed was that little extra effort, to kick my body to Change from one form to the other.

 _And if I can learn to Change to the wyvern at will, maybe I can learn to reverse it without needing a hug or a hot shower?_

Gritting my teeth, I concentrated.

* * *

 _Amy trudged in through the back gate. She didn't often take the bus; it was easier to get a lift home with Vicky. But Vicky had had to go off somewhere in a hurry, and she'd never gotten back to Arcadia, and so Amy had ridden the bus home._

 _Climbing the back stairs, she let herself in, closing the door quietly behind her. She opened the fridge to grab an apple, then headed through to the living room. It was a little bit of a surprise to see Aunt Sarah there, as well as Dad and some guy she'd never met before, but she wasn't in the mood for meeting strangers right at that moment._

 _Still, politeness was a good thing, so she wandered over. "Hi, Aunt Sarah. Hi, Dad."_

 _Mark raised his eyes from the TV long enough to give her a vague smile and a wave; he'd forgotten to take his medications again._

" _Hello, dear," Aunt Sarah greeted her. "This is Danny Hebert."_

" _Hi, Mr Hebert." She looked back at her aunt. "I'm looking for Vicky. Is she in?"_

" _Oh, yes," Aunt Sarah told her. "In her room is what she said, but -"_

" _Okay, thanks." She smiled warmly at her aunt, and politely at Mr Hebert, and headed up the stairs._

" _Amy dear, make sure to knock," Aunt Sarah called after her._

 _ **Yeah,**_ **that's** _ **gonna happen.**_ _Vicky hadn't knocked on her bedroom door after about the first day of them sleeping in separate rooms, and she'd gotten out of the habit herself. Amy headed along the passageway, opened Vicky's door and stepped inside._

" _Say, Vicky, why -" she began, before her mind locked up. Because Vicky was standing, facing her. But between Vicky and Amy, facing Vicky, was a total stranger, about her age, with long dark curly hair. Vicky was fully dressed. As far as Amy could tell, the other girl wasn't dressed at all._

 _Amy couldn't think of a single good reason as to why Vicky might have a girl in her room, particularly one without clothes on. Many bad ones cropped up, tumbling over one another to make themselves heard. But all she could hear herself think was,_ _ **Oh god, why not me?**_

 _And then the girl turned, and Amy saw that she was holding a small towel over her front; at the same time, the girl screamed in fright, grabbing for a sheet off the bed. Reflexively, Amy screamed right back, retreating from the girl, from her rival. The girl screamed again; this time,_ _ **something**_ _happened to her body._

 _Her face changed, pushing outward from her head. Hair retreated into her scalp. Arms, already skinny, lengthened as membranes spread between them and her body, her fingers shooting outward and growing more membranes. Her skin grew red-gold scales, a tail lengthened from behind her and her legs became digitigrade, with wickedly clawed feet. The scream turned into a high-pitched screech of alarm, while a red-gold crest raised on the saurian head. Both the towel and the sheet fell to the floor, but that didn't matter any more._

 _The girl had Changed into a dragon. There was a_ _ **dragon**_ _in Vicky's bedroom. A dragon, which had previously been a teenage girl._

 _Backing up, Amy found that the door had swung shut behind her. Trapping her in the room with the dragon._

* * *

Stunned, I watched as the teenage girl – I strongly suspected that this was 'Ames', otherwise known as Panacea – backed up against the door, eyes wide.

"Hah!" Vicky's exclamation of triumph made both of us jump. We turned to look at her; she pointed at my face, or rather, my muzzle. "That expression, right there. _That's_ what I'm talking about."

Lowering my head, I put my wing over it, in lieu of performing a proper face-palm.

 _Oh boy._

* * *

End of Part Six


	7. Chapter 7

**Wyvern**

* * *

Part Seven: … For You are Crunchy, and Go Well With Ketchup

* * *

"Dragon." Amy Dallon stared at me, eyes wide.

 _I'm a_ _ **wyvern**_ _,_ I thought crossly.

Amy was obviously no telepath. "Dragon. Room. Why?"

Vicky stepped over next to me, putting an arm affectionately around my neck. "Because it's _awesome_ , that's why. Taylor, meet Ames. Ames, meet -"

Thundering footsteps up the stairs and along the passageway interrupted her introductions; Amy moved away from the door just before it was flung open. Mrs Pelham was first through the doorway, followed by Dad, and then Mrs Dallon.

"We heard screaming," Dad burst out. "What happened?"

Vicky grinned. "Well. Ames came in to say hi, and Taylor had sort of taken her clothes off … "

"Why?" interjected Amy again.

"Because if she's wearing anything when she Changes, she destroys it." Vicky grinned at her sister. "Geez, try to keep up. So anyway, Amy was kind of surprised to find someone in my room without any clothes on … "

"I think anyone would," offered Dad. I nodded vigorously in agreement.

"Yeah, I suppose me too," agreed Vicky. "Anyway, Amy sort of screamed, then Taylor screamed right back, and Amy screamed again, and then Taylor Changed … and yeah, Mom, this is what she looks like."

Mrs Dallon stepped forward; behind her, I saw Vicky's father peering in through the doorway. I stood a little straighter as Vicky's mom looked me over, turning my head as she walked around behind me and stepped over my tail.

"Taylor," she addressed me, "can you understand me?"

I nodded, and added an agreeable chirp.

"That means yes," Vicky supplied.

"Thank you, Victoria, I think I got that," Mrs Dallon murmured. "Taylor, may I see your wings?"

Again, I nodded, then turned slightly so that I had the room. Unfurling my wings let me reach both walls before I got to full extension, but they still looked pretty good, I thought.

"Wow. Seriously. Dragon. Big wings." Amy seemed to be getting over her initial shock, although she still wasn't speaking in complete sentences.

Dad cleared his throat. "I think we agreed on 'wyvern', actually."

"Huh?" asked Amy.

Her father leaned over to her. "Dragons have four limbs and two wings. Wyverns have two limbs and two wings. It's a fantasy thing."

"Okay, right." Amy looked at Vicky. "But why your room?"

Vicky shrugged. "Because she needed someplace to Change."

"Argh. No. Sorry, I'm not saying this right." Amy dug her hands through her hair. "Why did she have to be in _your_ room, without anything on, with _you_ there? Why couldn't she just Change on her own? And why was she just standing around like that?"

"Oh. Right. Sorry." Vicky looked enlightened. "She has trouble Changing. She needs a little bit of a boost to go from one form into another."

"And you may recall that I _did_ suggest that you knock before entering," Mrs Pelham reminded her.

"Pfft, that's never gonna happen," Vicky told her with an airy wave. "Ames and I barge in on each other all the time."

"Anyway, it's a stress based Change," Dad told Amy. "I'm guessing the surprise of having you burst in on her is what tipped the balance in this particular instance."

"Oh." She stared at him. "And who are you, exactly?"

"Your aunt introduced us, remember?" He extended his hand. "Danny Hebert. Taylor's father. It's an honour to meet you, Panacea."

She shook his hand almost by reflex, or so it seemed. "Yeah, nice to meet you too." Turning, she moved over to where I stood, re-folding my wings just so. "And you're … Taylor, right?"

I nodded and made the same agreeable noise that I had given her mother.

"And how long have you been able to Change into a … what did you call it? A wyvern?"

I shrugged; Vicky leaned in. "She can't actually talk like that," she explained. "As for how long it's been … well, today, basically." She grinned broadly at Amy. "But how cool is this? She's joining New Wave!"

"Wait, what?" Amy asked. "Joining the team? Is that a good idea?"

"Yes, we think so," Mrs Pelham told her. "She's a new cape, she's quite powerful in her own way, she doesn't want to be involved with the Protectorate, and she needs support in her Changed form."

"Yeah, you should've seen her melt Armsmaster's halberd," Vicky added enthusiastically. "It was _awesome!"_

Amy stared at me; I felt like putting my wing over my face again. "She _melted_ Armsmaster's halberd? Wasn't he mad?"

Vicky grinned and nodded. "But there wasn't much he could do about it … because, you know, she'd already melted his halberd."

"And she's got lots of teeth, and … yeah, I got it," agreed Amy. "Wow. I wish I'd been here." She paused. "How did she even end up here?"

"Okay, you know how I just blew out of Arcadia? It was because I'd heard that a big weird red thing was flying over the city. Turns out it was Taylor here." Vicky wrapped an arm companionably around my shoulders. "I went to investigate, we kind of fell in the ocean, I talked to her, and we came back here."

Amy nodded. "So basically, she followed you home and you want to keep her. Because dragon."

Vicky tried to look innocent, and failed. "Maayyybe? Anyway, since then, she's been popping back and forth between wyvern and human form. We've kind of got the wyvern-to-human part down, but the human-to-wyvern part is a bit more complicated."

"You said it's a stress-based change," Amy noted; she was looking thoughtful. "Do you know that for a fact, or is it just a theory?"

"Oh, it's pretty well established," Vicky chuckled. "Like when I hit her with my fear aura. She changed pretty darn fast then."

"Which _also_ caused her to destroy the clothing she was wearing," chided Mrs Pelham. "Which you should have thought of beforehand."

Vicky waved that away airily. "It was in the cause of scientific experimentation. Besides, they were my old clothes anyway. I got more where that came from."

"If you think I'm going to just keep buying you new clothes, you're sadly mistaken," Mrs Dallon informed her tartly. "But we do need to find a solution to both problems."

"What, the destroying-clothes-when-she-Changes problem?" asked Dad.

"And also the Changing-at-will problem," Mrs Pelham filled in. "Not so sure what to do about the second one, but I have an idea for the first."

I looked at her inquiringly; she seemed to interpret my interrogative chirp correctly. "I'm going to make a phone call, and then we've got a visit to make. Up for another flight?"

While I was thinking about that, Vicky grinned. "Ooh, ooh. I know who we're visiting. Is it -"

* * *

"- Parian," Mrs Pelham, or rather Lady Photon, explained as we flew over the city. "Apparently, the name refers to a type of doll, which is apropos, given her costume."

I nodded. _Yeah, I've heard of her._ There wasn't much more I could convey, given my lack of language capability in wyvern form, but that seemed to satisfy the older hero.

"She's a rogue," Vicky went on from the other side of me. "Doesn't do the hero thing. Uses her power to make money. Which is a cop-out, if you ask me. I can totally see her using those animated stuffed animals to stop a bank robbery or something."

"Now, now," Lady Photon pointed out, "not everyone with powers wants to fight crime. They're her powers; she's allowed to do whatever she likes with them."

"But I just don't get the whole asking for money for using your powers bit," Vicky told her. "Being a hero's all about helping people because you can, right?" She gestured toward Amy, being carried bridal-style in her aunt's arms. "I mean, what if Ames suddenly started charging for healing people?"

Amy looked taken aback. "I … never really thought about it before. Charging money … that's not really how we do it in New Wave, right?"

 _Maybe you should think about it,_ I thought, but the screech I let out couldn't really convey that. _Darn nonverbal form._

"Well, this is true," Lady Photon assured her. "We're heroes, dear, not mercenaries."

"But … _doctors_ charge money, right?" Amy was still working her way through it. "And they do a lot less than me, and spend more time doing it. It's not like I'd be doing anything they _don't_ do. Or even anything illegal."

"Wow, Ames, where did this come from?" asked Vicky, blithely ignoring the fact that she'd brought up the topic in the first place. "You're _Panacea._ You're my awesome little sister who cures cancer and heals people because it's the right thing to do."

"You're right," Amy agreed. "Heroes gotta be heroes, right? Rogues get no respect."

I thought I detected the echo of Vicky's voice in Amy's words, but I was unable to make a comment at that particular moment. However, I didn't get to think more deeply about the matter, as gunshots sounded from below.

"Where did that come from?" asked Lady Photon, her force-bubble popping into existence to cover herself and Panacea.

"Down there, I think." Vicky pointed and dived; almost instinctively, I followed.

"Taylor!" shouted Lady Photon. "Wyvern! Stay back! You might get hurt!"

I heard the words, but I wasn't processing them; a deeper, more primeval urge was pushing me on. Folding my wings back, I accelerated, straining to catch up to Vicky. Now I saw what she had seen; a car outside a shop, a police car across the street. Men shooting at the police officers. One officer was down; I growled, deep in my throat.

Vicky whipped down out of the sky, slammed into the street on one knee. One fist planted in the now-cracked asphalt, the other arm held back up out of the way. It looked extremely badass; I wondered how long she'd been practising that landing.

I spread my wings, slowing my descent, changing my plunge into a swoop; Vicky looked as though she had the situation in hand. Rising to her feet, she moved toward the three men behind the car. Bullets were fired at her; one or two might have struck, but to no particular effect. Even from where I was, I could feel her aura. For me, she was impressive; for the criminals, terrifying. _I know how that feels._

Moving with fluid ease, she vaulted the car and grabbed the nearest man; while she was thus occupied, the other two ran back into the store. _Oh no,_ I thought. _You do not get away that easily._

My swoop carried me over the building and I rolled in midair; a fast loop bled off speed, and I spilled air from my wings to land on the building opposite the back door.

Not a moment too soon; the door burst even as I did so, and the two tumbled out into the alleyway. Inhaling deeply, I unleashed a flame similar to that which had destroyed Armsmaster's halberd. The blue-hot jet traced a line across the alleyway that liquefied the corner of a dumpster, set fire to a stack of wet newspapers, cleanly bisected a trash can plus all of its contents, and scored a four-inch deep glowing red gutter in the concrete.

Quite understandably, they halted, looking up at me and then back down at the line I had marked. If they wanted to get out of the alleyway, they would have to cross that line. Nonverbal I might be, but I was pretty sure that they got the message. _But just in case …_

Flapping my wings once, I took off from my perch and landed on the far side of the line. Wings spread and jaws agape, I repeated the threat display that I had used on Armsmaster; my screech echoed between the walls of the alleyway.

One of the men blanched and bolted back inside, while the other raised his pistol. I had no desire to see how bulletproof, or otherwise, I really was, so I spat an explosive fireball at him. Just a little one. Barely there at all. The detonation knocked him on his ass, stunned him, and removed all the hair from the front of his head. It also set fire to his shirt, but that went out a moment or so later.

He was still sitting there, blinking, touching his face to see if it was still there, when Vicky came out into the alleyway. She took one look at my stance, then at the criminal, and burst out laughing. He didn't resist when she disarmed him and took him in hand, which was a good thing, because she was nearly helpless with giggles herself. I followed along behind them; it wouldn't be a bad thing, I figured, to be seen with Glory Girl.

"Oh god," she chortled after handing the hapless thief over to the police, "he looked exactly like a cartoon character after a bomb's gone off in his face."

I shrugged and nodded; that _was_ more or less what had happened, after all.

Lady Photon had landed, and Panacea was seeing to the wounded officer. I was introduced as 'Wyvern, our newest member,' which garnered startled looks from the other police officers. After a moment, they nodded respectfully in my direction, and I nodded back.

After Vicky gave her statement – she helpfully explained that I didn't talk – we took off again on our interrupted trip. Fortunately, the rest of the journey passed without incident.

* * *

I stood, wings raised a little and partly unfolded, as Parian walked around me. It was much easier for her to do so than it had been for Mrs Dallon, back in Vicky's bedroom; the loft we were standing in was wide and airy, with a high ceiling. It was sparsely furnished, with a worktable, a couple of chairs, and several dressmakers' dummies. Vicky and Amy were checking their phones, off to the side.

Parian herself wore a sort of frilly dress that had been out of fashion in the real world for maybe a hundred years. She was covered up almost totally, even down to gloves to go with the dress. About the only thing that I could tell about her was that she was blonde; a mass of golden curls tumbled down her back from the totally-not-creepy porcelain doll's-face mask that she wore.

"So what exactly are you looking for, here?" she asked. "I can make something up to fit Wyvern easily enough, but that's not a real challenge. Anyone with a sewing machine could do that."

"You're right," Lady Photon agreed. "We're after a costume that will give her modesty once she changes back to human form. One that she can wear under her clothes when she's _in_ human form, just in case."

Parian rubbed her chin under the mask. "Something that will fit her in both forms? Hmm. That _is_ a challenge." A measuring tape lifted off of the worktable and drifted over to me; I restrained the urge to snap at it as it wrapped itself around my leg.

Lady Photon raised her head. "So can you do it?"

"I won't know until I've seen her human form, and the Change in between," Parian stated. She observed the measurement; beside her head, a levitating pencil took notes in a similarly floating notepad. I watched with fascination. "If she simply flashes from one form to another … "

"She doesn't," Vicky informed her. "It takes a few seconds. She actually alters from one form to the other."

"Well, that makes it _possible,_ at least," allowed the doll-faced rogue, as the tape took its measurements. "But I'll still need to see the human form, and observe the Change."

"Yeah, that's a bit of a problem," Vicky noted. "Changing back only really happens when she's totally relaxed, and she won't be wearing anything when she does."

"Which is why you need the costume in the first place," agreed Parian. She turned to address me. "Well, Wyvern, you understand that I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable or embarrassed. But if we don't do this, then I can't help you with the costume. Yes?"

I nodded and made my agreeable noise, then stood a little straighter and brought my wings around to cover myself.

"Got anything we can wrap around her?" asked Vicky; she was picking up on my body language.

"I've got changing screens over there," Parian offered, pointing to a corner of the loft. "And a robe she can put on … she's not really buff, in her human form, is she?"

"Pfft, hah, no," snorted Vicky. "She's about your weight, but a bit taller than me."

Parian seemed to look her over. "Huh," she observed. "On the skinny side, then. Good, that'll make this easier. I hope. Come on, Wyvern."

I followed her to the changing screens; they were taller than Parian herself by a good six inches, though in my normal form, I would just about be able to peek over the top. On the way, she grabbed a long silk bathrobe; gesturing me behind the screens, she draped the robe over the top. "Put this on once you've Changed," she advised me. "Then we can see how your measurements have altered."

Again, I nodded, and gave her a friendly chirp. She nodded back as I sidled behind the screens, keeping my wings in so as not to knock them down. Because that would make my day just _perfect._

 _Okay,_ I told myself. _Time to prove I can Change back. Nobody can see me, and I've got clothes right there. It won't be embarrassing this time._

It didn't happen at once, which didn't totally surprise me, so I breathed deeply, trying to relax myself, get rid of the tension in my muscles. The first time I'd done this was when I had been drifting off to sleep on the sofa. Feeling safe for the first time. Closing my eyes, I tried to recapture the way I had felt. _Safe … warm … no danger … comfortable …_

I opened my eyes. Nictitating membranes flicked across and back, a familiar sensation. I still had a muzzle, still had wings. I was still a dragon.

 _Okay, let's try that again._

The next time … Dad had wrapped me in the comforter, and had hugged me. I had felt so safe, so warm in his arms. So _accepted._ Even though I had become a creature out of fantasy stories, he had never hesitated to comfort me. Once more I closed my eyes, wrapping my wings around myself, trying to feel like that again.

And … nothing. No matter how I tried to force myself into human form, no matter how I visualised changing back, I was missing something. Missing a vital key.

"How you doing back there?" called Vicky.

I replied with a frustrated snarl. There were no words in it, but then, the message was in the content.

"Keep trying," Lady Photon urged. "You'll master it. I have faith in you."

"Maybe I can help?" That was Amy. "Trigger the feeling of relaxation?"

"Ames, you don't work with brains," Vicky protested, even as I heard the healer's footsteps growing closer. "You can't."

"Relaxing has to do with more than just the brain," Amy replied to her, now quite close behind the screen. "I can give, uh, Wyvern a sense of well-being without ever needing to touch her brain."

I let out a questioning chirp.

"Wyvern?" she asked from just a few feet away. "I'm going to need for you to put your wingtip or something over the top of the screen, so I can get physical contact with you."

There wasn't much in the way of choice, so I did as she asked, raising my main wing-finger so that it protruded over the screen. Almost immediately, I felt her cool hand closing over it.

"All right then," she told me, "I need your permission to affect your body. It won't be permanent; I'll just temporarily adjust some hormonal balances, all right?"

I chirped again, trying to sound agreeable.

"That means yes!" Vicky called out.

Panacea sighed. "Uh, a chirp for yes, a loud squawk for no."

I chirped once, then waited.

"I'm going to take that as permission. Okay, here we go."

At first, nothing seemed to happen, and then I felt knots of tension just unravelling and draining away. The feeling of relaxation spread throughout my body like a steady tide, pushing all tension before it. And it worked; I began to Change.

This time, I was aware of the Change as it happened, aware of the sensation of my body shifting and changing in various directions. In a word … it was bizarre. My muzzle retracted, my spine straightened, my tail retracted, as did the flight membranes. In just a few seconds, I found myself once more standing on human feet, not reptilian claws. And my hand was on top of the screen, with Amy Dallon holding my index finger.

I cleared my throat as I pulled my finger free of her grip. "Okay, that's always weird." Tugging the robe down from where it was draped, I put it on and tied the belt firmly around my waist. Parian needn't have worried; the robe could have gone around me three times.

"Hi, it's nice to meet you in person," Amy told me as I came out from behind the screen. She held out her hand.

I shook it; we both grinned self-consciously at the formality. "Nice to meet you too," I replied.

"Thanks for letting me help you Change," she noted. "I've never had the chance to see how a Change actually works before now. It's really fascinating."

"Well, thanks for kicking it over for me," I replied. "And let's hope Vicky doesn't decide to fear-aura me again when it comes time for me to Change back."

"She really did that?" Amy paused, and nodded to herself as she eyed her sister. "Yeah, you'd definitely do that, wouldn't you?"

Vicky grinned at Amy's tone as she came up on my other side, hooking her arm through mine. "Sure. It worked, didn't it?"

"Seriously." Amy rolled her eyes. "Brute force isn't the answer to _everything."_

"Is for me."

"Girls. Enough." Lady Photon clapped her hands once, gently. "Let Parian get her measurements in peace." She handed me my glasses, as well as a simple cloth mask; I put them on gratefully, and the loft came into focus once more. I noticed that Parian had been averting her eyes until my identity was concealed, for which I was somewhat grateful.

Then I had to hold still as Parian took the same measurements that she had before. Her impersonal air, and the fact that the measuring tape didn't need her to hold it in place, made it a somewhat less embarrassing experience than it could have been.

Finally, she was finished, and I was allowed to take a seat on one of the chairs. Amy sat on the other, slurping at a chocolate shake. Silently, she handed me another one; Vicky had apparently taken it on herself to go on a snack run. I didn't mind in the least.

"Hmm," murmured Parian, studying the two different sets of measurements. "This is interesting. I think I can do something with this, but I'm going to need to do one final set of checks."

"What have I got to do?" I asked; this sounded ominous.

"I'm going to need you to Change back, but first I'm going to have to put marks on your body so that we know which way it's altering shape."

"Marks … on my body?"

"Sure." She crossed to the work table and picked up two markers; one black, and one fluorescent blue. "These should show up best against your scales."

"And where do these marks need to go?" I was getting a sinking feeling about this.

"Oh, uh, around here," she told me, gesturing to her body between her neck and thighs. Which was what I had figured.

"Yay," I muttered. "Wonderful."

* * *

She didn't want to do it immediately; instead, she bent over the worktable with Lady Photon, sketching on a piece of paper, and discussing options. I was happy to leave them to it, so I sat on the stool and chatted to Vicky and Amy. The latter was interested in how I had triggered; I gave her what details I could stand to give. Then Vicky gave a highly colourful account of how we had met, and subsequently ended up in the ocean; Amy came close to snorting chocolate shake out of her nose.

We told her about how I had managed to ruin two changes of clothes after getting to the Dallon household; Vicky's description of how I had destroyed Armsmaster's halberd had Amy looking at me with a certain amount of respect. She nodded when Vicky mentioned the plastic sheet; apparently she recalled it as well.

"I'm sorry for screaming when we first met," she went on, "I was really, really surprised to see you in Vicky's room. I walked in, and all I could see of you was a lot of hair and a bare butt."

I snorted. "My butt's not that big, is it?"

"Well, no," admitted Amy. "But when you're not expecting to see one, it certainly draws the attention."

"Hah, true," Vicky agreed, and began to tell a story about an epic costume malfunction that had made it online after a cape battle in Detroit. Amy and I were both giggling madly by the time Lady Photon and Parian came back over to us.

"All right then," Parian stated, holding up a piece of paper. It held a sketched silhouette of what I guessed was me. Lines were overlaid on it, in a rough grid pattern over the torso. "Once we trigger your Change back to wyvern form, I'll be able to compare these, and work out how to make your costume so that it fits both forms."

In the end, I allowed her to inscribe the lines on me, but we did it behind the screens, and I had her make me some underwear so that it didn't have to be totally embarrassing. I held up my arms as she traced lines around my ribs, and worked at not moving too much as the grid-lines took shape. Just above my butt, she drew a much tighter set of gridlines, which piqued my curiosity.

"What's that for?" I asked, looking back over my shoulder.

"Your tail," she pointed out. "I'm going to have to put a gap in for it. This will tell me where."

"Oh. Right." Having a tail was a relatively new experience; I was glad that _someone_ was paying attention.

Finally, she finished her latitude and longitude markings, as I privately thought of them, and retreated from behind the screen. "Any time you're ready," she called.

"So how's it look?" Vicky interjected.

I looked down at myself. "Like some sort of motion-capture effect for the movies. Or really, really unimaginative body art."

"It's actually the same principle as motion capture," Lady Photon pointed out. "So, are you ready to try to Change yourself, or do you need assistance?"

"Gimme a few," I requested. Taking off my glasses and mask, I hung them over the edge of the screen.

"Okay," Vicky called back, "but if you're not out in five minutes, I'm coming in with a camera."

I was _almost_ certain she was joking, but I concentrated on regaining the Wyvern form anyway. It was there; I _knew_ it was there. I could Change from one to the other without meaning to already; I needed to be able to do it on purpose.

 _Stress,_ I told myself. _Stress. I need to Change. I need to feel stress._

And then I realised that I _knew_ what I had to do in order to Change; I just didn't _want_ to do it.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath; before I could talk myself out of it, I delved into the worse memories of the last year. Everything that Emma, Madison and Sophia had done to me. All of the dozens of hurts, physical and emotional, that I had endured at their hands.

The pain, the humiliation, the anger that I had swallowed, it all came back to me. I took another deep breath, and another. Distantly, I felt momentary constriction, but it loosened again almost immediately.

I opened my eyes; nictitating membranes flashed across and back as true-lids blinked. Flexing my wings, I opened my jaws and let out a triumphant squawk. I'd needed to relive times that I really, really didn't want to go back to – even now, I was simmering with anger at the reminder of what Emma and her cronies had put me through – but I had succeeded in Changing voluntarily. The makeshift underwear had paid the price, but that was what it had been there for; the robe, on the other hand, was safe.

 _Now, if only I could learn to Change back just as easily._

I strutted out from behind the screens, head held high; Vicky grabbed me in a hug. "Wow, that was fast," she exclaimed. "You must've been really worried about the camera." I pretended to snap at her; she laughed as she danced away.

"All right then," Parian declared. "Let's see how well this worked." Obediently, I stood still as she examined the markings, correlating them to the sketch she held. Occasionally, her measuring tape laid itself up against me, and she jotted down a number. Lady Photon watched the process with interest, while Vicky and Amy chatted with each other. The majority of their conversation seemed to have to do with school and boys, not necessarily in that order. Vicky was showing interest in Gallant, from the Wards and didn't care who knew it, while Amy was more reserved; she didn't seem to care about such matters.

As riveting as the gossip was – Arcadia sounded _vastly_ different to Winslow, in basically every way that mattered – I was glad when Parian's examination of the markings came to an end. "Okay," she told me. "Go Change back if you can. I've got enough to go on with."

I made an enquiring chirp. "What does that mean?" asked Lady Photon, apparently of the same mind as myself.

"It means that I'm ready to start making the costume," Parian told us. I couldn't see her face, but she sounded quite pleased with herself. "Hopefully, it'll be easier than I thought it was going to be."

Once more, I traipsed behind the screens. My glasses and mask were still there, as were the destroyed remains of the underwear that Parian had stitched together to give me some modesty. The robe was also where I had left it, which meant that I wouldn't be left without clothing once I Changed back. It was _amazing_ how reassuring that was to me, given the day that I'd just had.

 _Okay, I can do this,_ I told myself. _I can Change to a wyvern, so I can Change back to a human. Easy peasy._

I closed my eyes and reminded myself what it felt like to be human. Two legs, two arms, no tail. No flame breath. Being able to talk.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and did my best to relax, to let myself slip back into what was (I hoped) still my natural form. I did my best to remember better days, the good times I'd had with Mom and Dad. But every good memory seemed to lead to a bad one; Mom dead, Dad distraught.

I tried again; this time I focused on Vicky and Amy, on Flashbang and Brandish and Lady Photon. The acceptance they had shown me when they could easily have rejected me, turned me away.

It gave me a warm feeling, a good feeling, but there wasn't enough of it. It was still too new; deep down, I wasn't sure if I could trust it. Too many good things had gone bad for me in the past.

Eventually, I leaned around the screens and chirped to get their attention. Amy's head came up.

"Do you need my help?" she asked.

I nodded and chirped in the affirmative.

"Okay." Smiling, she hopped off the stool and strolled over; I went back behind the screens again, and extended my wingtip up and over. She was getting better at it; this time, it only seemed to take a few seconds before the Change kicked in. Once I was back in human form, I donned the robe, glasses and mask, and came out from behind the screen.

Parian had not been idle; the costume was taking shape, with small razors shaping the cloth before needles and thread fastened it together. It was being assembled on an adjustable dressmaker's dummy that had been cranked to 'tall and skinny'. Lady Photon and Vicky were watching with some interest as Amy and I joined them.

"It's fortunate that your wyvern form is relatively humanoid," Parian informed me. "I've heard of some Changers who take on utterly weird shapes. I couldn't do this with them."

"There is some change in proportion," Lady Photon commented, in what I considered to be masterful understatement. "Are you able to allow for that?"

Parian nodded. "The fabric has some give in it; not much, but some. So long as it's not damaged in battle, it should supply Wyvern with sufficient modesty if she happens to turn back to human in public."

"Modesty is good," I noted. "I like it."

Vicky snickered. "Says the girl who's destroyed her clothing _how_ many times today?"

I rolled my eyes. "Says the girl who was responsible for at least _one_ of those times, and had far too much fun with the others?"

She grinned at me; I stuck my tongue out at her.

* * *

End of Part Seven


	8. Chapter 8

**Wyvern**

* * *

Part Eight: All Dressed Up

* * *

Parian's voice sounded from beyond the partition. "Okay, so how does it fit?"

I hesitated, then called out, "Uh, there's not much of it."

"Just think of it as a swimsuit," I heard Vicky respond cheerfully.

"I'm not much into swimsuits, either," I replied.

"Are you decent enough for me to come back there?" asked the seamstress.

I looked down at myself. I was covered. _Besides, she saw more of me when she was drawing those damn lines on my body._ "Okay, sure, come on back."

A moment later, she appeared around the screen. She paused to look over the swimsuit – that is, costume. "What's the matter?" she asked. "It fits all right, doesn't it?"

I fluttered my hands over my body. "I guess I don't like the idea of running around in something that's this … uh, well, skimpy."

Her voice was sympathetic, even if I couldn't see her face behind the porcelain mask. "I can understand that. I feel much the same way. But there's not much more I can add that won't either hamper you or get torn the first time you Change."

I grimaced. "Something, anything. I feel kinda almost undressed here. Below the waist, it's like I'm wearing just underwear in public. And up the sides, it kind of gapes. If I bend forward -" I demonstrated, holding it in, "- there's a good chance that people will get a lot more than a glimpse of side-boob, if you know what I mean."

"Hm. That is kind of a problem." She put her head to one side, resting her chin on her knuckles. "I had the idea that it would hang together more closely, but it's obviously not doing that. There are static-cling materials out there, but they cost an arm and a leg."

"Which I can't afford and I don't want to put that on you or Lady Photon," I replied.

"Wait a moment." She snapped her fingers. "I have just the thing. How about zippers? Heavy zippers that can be pulled up the moment you change to human. And when you Change back, they get pushed down again."

"That could work," I conceded. "But what about down there?" I gestured at myself. "I keep wanting to cover myself. And guys will be able to stare at my butt. Or rather, see how skinny my butt really is."

"Hm." Her voice was serious, for all that I thought I heard a tinge of amusement there. "Well, okay then. Glory Girl wears a skirt over bike shorts. Why don't we put a skirt on this thing? Short enough that it won't hamper you when you're in wyvern form and long enough that it'll drape down and give you a little modesty when you're in human form."

Looking down at the costume, I thought about that. "Okay, we can try that."

"Well then," she agreed, moving back to give me privacy. "Get back into the robe and I'll see what I can do."

* * *

"Well, what do you think?" I asked, stepping out from behind the screen.

Parian's gaze was impassive, but the other three showed signs of interest. Lady Photon stepped forward and gestured in a circle. "Turn around," she requested.

I turned in a circle; as I did so, Vicky and Amy stepped up, checking over every inch of the costume.

"Huh, I don't know what the fuss was all about," Vicky snorted. "If that's a swimsuit, it's from about a century ago."

"Yeah, well, _your_ swimsuits could be made from the off-cuts from this one," Amy sniped cheerfully.

"There were barely _any_ off-cuts."

"My point still stands."

"Girls, shush," Lady Photon chided them gently. Vicky stuck her tongue out at Amy. "Wyvern, how do you feel? Does the skirt work?"

I looked down at myself, at the skirt that now hung from the costume. It only covered me down to mid-thigh – less at the sides – but there was now the illusion of modesty, backing up the actual modesty of the costume itself.

"Yeah," I admitted. "It does work. I like it."

"The skirt does kinda finish it off, doesn't it?" Amy mused.

" _I_ think it'll look kinda funny when you're in wyvern form and you're still wearing a skirt," Vicky pointed out.

"Well, that's what we can find out now," suggested Lady Photon. "Wyvern, would you like to Change for us?"

"Sure," I agreed. "One second, I'll just go behind the screen."

"Why?" asked Vicky. "You're wearing the costume now."

"Yeah," I replied, "but what if something, you know, goes wrong with it?" I gestured. "Riippp."

"So what if?" She shrugged. "You'll be the wyvern."

"Hm." I considered this. "Good point."

Putting the glasses on the table but leaving the mask in place, I worked at summoning up the dark memories. The endless tormenting. The flute. The locker. My blood ran cold, there was a lump in my throat and I wanted to cry.

But I didn't. Instead, I found myself Changing, altering form. My arms grew longer, membranes stretching out to match my elongating fingers. The zippers on each side of the costume came into their own now, sliding down and allowing the wing membranes to form naturally. At the same time, my emerging tail poked out through the slit in the costume just above my butt.

While my overall shape changed dramatically, my basic form did not; I ended the transformation still bipedal, still with two legs and two arms. My legs were wider; the material there and elsewhere had obviously been selected for its give. I checked as carefully as I could; nothing was torn, nothing damaged. The skirt, as Vicky had noted, looked faintly ridiculous, but I could live with ridiculous if it meant that I knew nobody could stare at my butt in a skin-tight costume.

Opening my mouth, I let out a triumphant squawk. Turning in a circle, I spread my wings wide so that they could all see the costume.

Lady Photon nodded. "Well, now. That works. It works very well."

"Hell, yes," Vicky agreed. "And the skirt doesn't even look as silly as I thought it might." I turned my head toward her and made a rude noise; she grinned at me.

"Definitely, yes," Amy stated. "I kinda like it."

Vicky elbowed her in the ribs. "Maybe we should get you out of that burqa and into something more form-fitting too, sis. Show off that bod for the boys."

"Yeah, no, I'll pass," Amy demurred. "Me and my burqa are doing quite well, thanks."

"Your loss." Vicky turned to me. "So, uh, Wyvern, now you got your costume. Wanna blow this popsicle stand and go scare up some trouble?"

"Wait, wait," Lady Photon interrupted before I could reply in any meaningful way. "We need to discuss options now."

"Options?" asked Parian. "What do you mean?"

"Different colour costumes, for one." Lady Photon pointed at the one I was wearing. "Basic black works well, but I was thinking of one in white, with maybe some sort of symbol, to fit in with the basic New Wave theme. Also, perhaps one that matches her scales."

Now Parian was nodding. "I see what you mean," she agreed. "Now that I've got the pattern, that'll be easy."

"Also, because of her particular needs," Lady Photon noted, "maybe a couple of pouches. One to carry a pair of glasses and one to carry a mask."

"Phone," blurted Amy. "A phone, in case she needs to call home."

Lady Photon nodded to her. "Good thinking, Panacea. A third pouch for a phone."

Parian didn't seem to be doing anything, but a pencil was scribbling on her notepad in midair. "Can I make a suggestion?"

"Of course," Lady Photon agreed.

"If we put the pouches on a belt, she won't need to worry about what's being held on which costume."

"A belt, yes, of course," replied Lady Photon. "That should definitely work."

"Wow, geez, and I wanted to get out of here sometime _tonight,"_ groaned Vicky in a distinctly exaggerated tone of voice. "How long's _this_ gonna take?"

Parian held up a finger. We couldn't see her smile, of course, but we could hear the satisfaction in her voice. "Give me ten minutes."

* * *

"That was more like twenty minutes," grumbled Vicky as we flew away from Parian's workshop. I wore the costume, slightly adjusted to accommodate the belt which Parian had whipped up on the fly. My glasses reposed in one of the pouches and the cloth mask in another. The third lay empty, awaiting a phone.

Lady Photon shook her head. "You do realise that patience is a virtue, right?"

"Yeah, but not when there's bad guys out there just begging to be Wyverned to within an inch of their lives."

Amy, resting in Vicky's arms, frowned. "Did you just use 'Wyvern' as a verb?"

"And what if I did?" Vicky adopted a stuck-up tone of voice. "'Wyvern': verb. To inflict upon one's foes the absolute terror that rightfully comes from understanding that you've just pissed off a fire-breathing dragon. Also, to breathe fire on objects in such a manner that absolutely destroys them and leaves no doubt that a wyvern was involved. Halberds belonging to overly pretentious superheroes, for instance. Occasionally used as a noun. As in, _Dammit, the wyvern just melted my halberd_."

I let out a screech of laughter, while Lady Photon smiled tolerantly.

"Okay, yeah, I'll give you that one," agreed Amy, trying not to giggle. "That's a good one. I like it."

"Okay," Vicky decided briskly. "Once we've got you home, Ames, me and Taylor can go out and show Brockton Bay that there's a new hero in town."

"Don't stay out too long, dears," Lady Photon advised. "It _is_ a school night after all."

At the mention of 'school', I let out a disapproving screech. She must have picked up on it, because she looked over at me. "Now, Taylor, don't worry too much. Winslow will be closed for at least a day while they make sure that the building is still structurally sound. Maybe more time than that. In the meantime, you'll be working on your Change control, as Carol suggested."

 _Oh. Right. Yeah._

"Hey, I got a _great_ idea!"

We all looked at Vicky. I wasn't sure what was going through everyone else's minds, but the thought that crossed mine was _Uh oh …_

"And what is this idea, Vicky?" Lady Photon's voice didn't betray any trepidation at all; that made her braver than me. Or maybe she was just a really good actor.

"Taylor can come to Arcadia with me and Ames," Vicky responded enthusiastically. "She can meet everyone."

There was a long pause while each of us tried to fit our heads around the concept. I stopped flapping and glided for a few seconds.

"Uh, Vicky …" That was Amy. "Taylor's going to kind of have a secret identity, remember? Bringing her to school is not the best way to maintain that sort of thing." Gliding alongside, I nodded to show that I agreed.

"No, no," Vicky protested. "She can come to the school as _Wyvern."_

* * *

Staring at her, I let out a startled screech. Half a second later, the other two joined in; Lady Photon was a fraction ahead of Amy.

"What?"

"You've got to be kidding!"

Lady Photon got her composure back before Amy did. "Victoria dear," she began again. "How is that a good idea?"

"Well, it gets people used to her," Vicky pointed out. "She gets used to being the wyvern among people. I'll be there to slap anyone down who wants to be mean to her. But it'll still be just a little stressful, so she's unlikely to Change back in front of everyone."

"So it'll be more of a show and tell than actually Taylor attending classes," Amy decided. "Admit it, you just want to show off the fact that we've got a dragon on the team."

"Wyvern but hell, _yes_ ," declared Vicky. "I mean, seriously, Ames. Isn't this about the coolest thing that's ever happened to the team?"

Amy sighed. "Yeah, it is pretty cool. I mean, I'm not as dragon-mad as you are, but I like them pretty much. And Taylor? I like you as a person too. Even if, the first time we met, I thought you were making moves on my sister."

* * *

 _There was a stunned pause, then Vicky started laughing. Taylor joined in, making odd screeching noises, apparently trying not to lose control of her flight and tumble from the sky. Aunt Sarah took the initiative and landed on a rooftop below; Vicky landed with me then let me go and bent over with her hands on her knees, still laughing. Taylor's arrival was more of a controlled crash; she sprawled on the gravel then rolled on to her back, still making those odd screeching sounds._

" _My goodness," Aunt Sarah commented to me as we watched the other two cackle with mirth. "You really thought that?"_

 _I flushed. "Well, yeah, kinda," I admitted._

" _I see." Her eyes searched mine; not for the first time, I was glad of the scarf that I habitually wore over the lower part of my face as part of my costume. Still, she seemed to see something. "Hm."_

" _What?" I asked defensively._ _ **Please don't ask. Please don't ask.**_

" … _nothing," she replied after a pause so long that my heart nearly stopped. "But Amy?"_

" _Uh, yeah?"_

 _Her eyes seemed to bore into mine. "If you ever need to talk to someone about anything, anything at all … you know you can talk to me, right?"_

" _I … yeah, okay. Thanks." I turned away from her, not at all sure what she'd seen in my face, heard in my voice. I didn't know if I'd ever take her up on it. But the fact that the chance was there, the option to tell_ _ **someone**_ _… I felt just a little of the hard knot of tension inside me loosening up, ever so slightly._

" _All right then!" Aunt Sarah's voice cut over my thoughts as she clapped her hands. "It wasn't_ _ **that**_ _funny, you two. Come on, Amy's still got to get home before you two delinquents go on patrol."_

 _Tears were running down Vicky's face when she straightened up. "Me and Taylor talked about that, up in my room. But she was worried about me making moves on her, so I explained that I was a lot more interested in boys than in her skinny butt. It just sounded so funny when Ames mentioned it too."_

 _Taylor – or rather, Wyvern, in that form – scrambled to her feet and nodded in agreement, adding one of her weird sounding lizard chirps. I had to admit, she was very cool looking indeed, especially when she spread her wings. I didn't know if I was as smitten with her as Vicky was – in a good way, of course – but I_ _ **was**_ _a tiny bit envious that I hadn't met her first._

 _Of course, I could never show this. For years I had followed Vicky around like a shadow, doing everything she did, until I realised how I really felt about her. So now I was trying to prove that I could have my own likes and dislikes, be my own person. Maybe if I didn't shape my world around Vicky, I could stop being quite so jealous when I saw her with Dean._

 _Well, I could_ _ **hope.**_

* * *

Lady Photon and I took to the air while Vicky and Amy were still getting organised; they caught up shortly afterward, given that my top flying speed was nowhere near Vicky's, even when she was laden down with her sister. I felt better as I sculled through the air; having a good laugh was quite therapeutic in its own way.

If I wasn't much mistaken, I was actually getting better at flying, too. As far as I could tell, I was getting where I wanted to be with less wasted effort, my wings moving more efficiently. I still wasn't much _faster_ , but I'd be able to fly farther now. Which was definitely a good thing.

Still, I had the obscure feeling that Lady Photon and Vicky were cheating somehow; while I had to expend actual energy to get up to altitude and stay there, they just cruised along effortlessly. On the other hand, I could use the large surface area of my wings to do things that they _couldn't_ , at least not easily. Flaring my wings, I pulled a hard barrel roll, ending up on the other side of Lady Photon from her two nieces.

"Hey, wow," the healer exclaimed. "You never told me she could do _that."_

"Ignore her," Vicky advised her sister. "She's just showing off."

"Showing off or not, that's quite impressive," Lady Photon pointed out. "I suppose that because you have to work harder at flying, you think more about it and what you can do with it."

I nodded; that seemed to be about right. Plus, although I couldn't convey this, there seemed to be an instinctive flying capability that allowed me to pull off complex manoeuvres with relative ease. Or maybe I was just talented; who knew?

We glided down to a landing outside the Dallon household; from above, it was easy to pick out the row of dark spots caused by my destruction of Armsmaster's halberd. I was torn between regret that I'd done it and pride that I'd managed to pull off something so impressive.

* * *

Dad greeted us at the front door; he looked my costume up and down with some bemusement. "And this fits you when you're human?" he asked.

I nodded, chirping agreement.

"It really does," Vicky told him. "It looks like something you'd wear to the beach if you had no sense of adventure. Or to the mall, even."

I shook my head. I would not be wearing it to the mall. Vicky, apparently divining my thoughts, grinned at me. "Wuss."

Ostentatiously, I ignored her, turning to Amy. Holding out my wingtip to the healer, I made an inquiring chirp.

"Oh, you want to Change back?" Amy took hold of my wing, but waited until I nodded. Then she seemed to concentrate very slightly; I felt the soothing waves spreading through my body as the Change began. It went smoothly enough; when I was fully human, Amy let my arm go and I pulled the zippers up on either side of my body.

"Thanks," I told Amy, then turned to Dad. "See? It works."

"Huh, so it does," he agreed. "I wasn't sure how it could, but Parian obviously knows her stuff."

"And get this," I told him. "Belt pouches." Opening one pouch, I pulled out my glasses and put them on, then opened the next one and showed him the cloth mask that Parian had made up for me. "See? All equipped and ready to go."

"Except for a phone," Lady Photon reminded me. "We've still got to get that for you."

Dad nodded. "I can sort of see the reason why," he conceded, turning to her. "I don't like mobile phones – personal reasons – but as a superhero, Taylor will probably need one."

"Well, to be honest, I won't even be able to use any of this unless I'm in human form," I pointed out. "But if I _am_ in human form, I'll almost certainly need it."

"And you'll be able to wear the costume under your clothing if need be," observed Mrs Dallon; she had emerged from her study just in time to see the transformation. "That's good. Very useful."

"Oh, hi," I greeted her. She was Vicky and Amy's mom and she was nice to me, so I wanted to be polite, but she still didn't come off as approachable as Mrs Pelham. "Thanks. I'm still getting used to it, but it seems to work. Parian says she'll be making a couple more in different colours."

"That's probably a good idea," she replied. "Now, I'm going to need to see your log of events at Winslow before I can do any more preparation. And you're all going to need to not contact the Barnses or anyone else regarding the matter until I'm ready for the case to move ahead. Is that understood?"

"Perfectly," Dad assured her. "They'll probably be closing the school for a few days anyway, so Taylor won't even need to see Emma."

"Actually, about that," I observed. "Vicky wants me to come to Arcadia with her and Amy. As the Wyvern, not as me."

He blinked, startled. "Is that really a good idea?"

Mrs Dallon rubbed her chin gently. "Actually, it's not a terrible idea. Vicky, you know the Wards, right?"

"Uh, yeah, some of them," admitted the blonde. "The ones that go to Arcadia, anyway. I don't know who Shadow Stalker is yet. Or Vista. I think they go to different schools."

"Well, we can't have everything," Mrs Dallon decided briskly. "If you weren't already thinking of doing so, you could introduce Wyvern to the Wards -"

"Uh, wait," I interjected. "I don't know if I'm comfortable with finding out their secret identities."

She shook her head. "You don't have to. Vicky has many friends at Arcadia; the Wards are a small number among them. Unmasking to you is their choice. But doing this will go a long way toward integrating Wyvern into the team as far as the Protectorate is concerned."

"Oh, okay." That made sense. "Yeah, I can do that."

"Good. Excellent. Cool." Vicky stepped up. "Can Taylor and me go on patrol now, please?"

Mrs Dallon frowned. "I'm not so sure about this. She's a very new trigger. We haven't really explored the ramifications of her powers yet."

Vicky rolled her eyes. "Mom, she flies and she breathes fire. You should've seen how she dealt with those perps at the shop today. Scared the living crap out of them and only gave that one guy minor burns."

The frown deepened. "She _burned_ someone?" She turned to me. "You burned someone?"

"Uh, yeah," I admitted. "He had a gun, so I hit him with a really weak exploding fireball. It knocked him on his ass and set his shirt on fire. It went out pretty quickly, though."

"Hmm." She rubbed her chin again. "And nobody else got hurt?"

" _No,_ Mom," Vicky insisted. "Nobody else got hurt. Taylor's _good_ at this. And you should see her fly."

I felt the beginnings of a feeling of love and awe toward Vicky. It puzzled me for a second, but then I twigged; she was using her aura, consciously or otherwise, to influence her mother. Clearing my throat, I nudged her; she blinked and the aura receded.

Mrs Dallon showed no signs of having noticed it, though Dad was looking a little stunned. " … fine," she told Vicky. "Take her for a familiarisation flight around the city. If you see anything happening that you can't handle, don't assume Taylor's up to the task. Call the rest of us in. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, yeah, got it," Vicky agreed, nodding rapidly. "Okay, Taylor. Ready to rock and roll?"

I took a deep breath. "Sure. Just give me a moment to Change first."

"I can help, if you want," Amy offered.

I shook my head. "No, I've got to learn to get this down pat. Thanks for the offer, though."

"That's okay," she replied. "Any time."

Removing the glasses, I tucked them into their pouch, then made sure that the one holding my mask was securely closed. Then, taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and concentrated. I knew the form that I wanted to be in; the Wyvern, strong and powerful. Nobody would tease or torment me in that form, for fear of my fire breath, my teeth, my claws. Nothing Emma or Madison or Sophia did would be able to affect me.

As I touched on their names, I recalled things that they had done to me; small matters to them, no doubt, but big problems for me. Juice on my chair, causing people to make jokes about wetting myself. Being pushed down the stairs, causing me to break my glasses, but nobody was willing to say who did it. Being reminded of my mother's death in the cruellest ways possible. They had done all of these things to me and much more. Each incident had been another straw added to the pile on the camel's back.

But now, things would be different. Now, _I_ would be different.

* * *

I opened my eyes; nictitating membranes flashed back and forth over my eyes. My wings flexed and opened slightly as my tail moved behind me, balancing my stance. I was aware of all this and more, aware of the fire roiling in my gut. For now, it was banked, but it would be easy to call on it when needed.

"I think that was even smoother than the last time you did it," Amy noted. "Though it looked kind of painful."

I shook my head; there was no real way I could explain the emotional trauma that I needed to recall in order to force the change. Instead, I turned toward Vicky and let out an interrogatory chirp.

"Right, sure, let's go," she agreed, moving toward the door.

I followed her, pausing by Dad and awkwardly wrapping my wing around him in a kind-of hug.

"Take care out there, okay?" he asked, putting his arm around my shoulders. I nodded and made what I hoped was a soothing noise.

"It's okay, Mr H," Vicky assured him. "She's tough. And I'll take care of her."

Letting go of Dad, I headed to the door; Vicky opened it and I stepped outside. It was early evening by now and the street-lights were just starting to come on. I spread my wings and took a deep breath of the chilly air. Mrs Dallon and Mrs Pelham came out on to the porch, while Dad stayed discreetly inside.

"Come on then, slowpoke," Vicky called to me, launching herself skyward. I flapped my wings, lifting off of the ground, gaining altitude and speed with every stroke. As on the trip back to the house, the costume moved easily on me, neither hindering me nor being damaged by my movements.

Finally catching up to her, I moved alongside Glory Girl and we set out on our first patrol together.

* * *

"You know the Boat Graveyard, yeah?" she asked as we soared over the mismatched collection of ships. Some were large, some were small and some were half-sunken at their moorings. All were showing signs of disrepair.

I nodded and let out a screech, hoping to get across the meaning, _Yeah, doesn't everyone?_

"Okay, I'll take that as a yes," she replied. "But what you probably _don't_ know is that there are people living in the various hulks. Some are capes, some aren't. Homeless people, villains who are new to town and yet to establish themselves, vigilantes looking for a convenient lair, people on the run from the law or from a particularly vindictive villain … of course, when everyone _else_ has already taken up the good positions nearest the shore, there can be some pretty intense shoving matches. But they keep it down so the Protectorate and the PRT don't take much notice."

I tilted my head. _Huh._

"But nobody usually gets hurt, so I generally just do a flyby once in a while, let 'em know that we know they're there." We swooped lower; I peered down at the ships, now cloaked in dusk. I thought I saw one or two people moving around, but I couldn't be sure.

"Okay, so how are your wings holding up?" she asked. "If you're tired, we can land for a bit."

I shook my head and gave a negatory screech. To emphasise my point, I flapped harder, gaining a little altitude.

"Okay, you're fine," she conceded, easily matching me. "So where do you want to go now?"

My screech managed to put across the question _why are you asking_ _ **me**_ _?_ fairly effectively; she grinned sheepishly. "I keep forgetting you can't talk," she replied apologetically. "Let's see; the ABB are fun to play with, but Inago and Oni Lee are both raving mad nutcases and Aunt Sarah would make Mom ground me for a week if I even risked meeting them on your first patrol."

She paused, hovering in mid-air while she thought about the situation; experimenting, I found that I could hold steady as well. "The Empire Eighty-Eight are racist douches, but they've got some big hitters. I've heard rumours that Purity's split off from them, but I'd hate to find out that's wrong the hard way."

"I know." She brightened. "Let's go roust the Merchants. They're douches _and_ they don't have any fliers, so you should be pretty safe." So saying, she turned in mid-air and started off.

I followed, flapping my wings harder to keep up. From what I recalled, the Merchants were in the northern area of the city, so we didn't have too far to go, overall.

And then, from below, there was a tremendous BOOM as the side of one of the rusting hulks exploded outward. Startled, I back-winged and looked down; Vicky stopped also.

"What was _that?"_ she exclaimed.

I shrugged as best as I could while flying. My screech was intended to convey _how would I know,_ along with _it wasn't me this time._ Finally, I thought, there was destruction in the vicinity and it _wasn't my fault._

"Well, whatever it was, there's something going on down there," she decided. "Let's go see."

Suiting action to word, she dived. For a moment, I paused, wondering if this was the best plan of action. _What the hell._ I folded my wings and followed Vicky down.

* * *

End of Part Eight


	9. Chapter 9

**Wyvern**

* * *

Part Nine: Stinger!

* * *

"Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding." I put my hand over my eyes. Well, I put my power gauntlet over my helmet visor, but it came to much the same thing. "Seriously? What part of 'press red-red-green to disarm' did you _not_ understand?"

"Sorry, boss," Winston babbled. "I musta heard wrong. I thought you said 'green-green-red'."

"Which is the _firing_ sequence, you technology-illiterate australopithecine." I gestured at the missile test rack, which was notably empty, then at the side of the derelict vessel, which was just as notably decorated with a large flame-rimmed hole. "And now, not only have you managed to waste a missile that was worth significantly more than your annual salary, but you've also sent up a huge red flag to any do-gooders that might happen to be in the area."

"That's, like, not too much of a problem is it, right, boss?" Winston looked at me hopefully. "I mean, Brockton Bay's smaller than San Francisco, right? Less heroes, yeah?"

I sighed, not even bothering to correct 'less' to 'fewer'. "Winston. _Please_ try to keep up. You are indeed correct that we're not in San Francisco any more. Being there would be an _improvement._ In case you weren't aware, _this_ city has the seventh highest cape-to-normal ratio in the United States. If some hero isn't on their way to investigate right now, I will be extremely -"

"Surprise!"

The voice was bright and cheerful. It promised a very _chirpy_ beating at the hands of the teenage girl who had just swept in through the flaming hole that my idiot minion had thoughtfully opened up for her. She paid no attention to the fire; that, and the details of her costume, clued me in that I was now up against Glory Girl, of New Wave.

New Wave. I ask you. It's bad enough that Brockton Bay has independent capes patrolling the city, but an entire _family_ of them? Whatever _is_ the world coming to?

In any case, I already had my right arm pointing at the hole – not _entirely_ by chance, I assure you – and so it was a simple matter to send a welcoming gift her way. In this particular instance, I judged that a flash-bang with a good solid HE punch to it – _sans_ shrapnel, thank you very much – would be just the ticket. Such a missile was one of four already queued up, once again due to foresight on my part. The carousel in my right-hand missile housing rotated a quarter turn, lining the missile up with the launch rails.

Glory Girl, it was well-known, was an Alexandria package, so I had no qualms about shooting her with such a payload. After all, I may be a ruthless villain who can't see a bank without wanting to rob it, but I'm not a _complete_ monster.

The missile left the carousel and scorched off the rails approximately half a second after the teen hero made her appearance. I had just enough time to appreciate the look of startled shock on her face, transmitted via the tiny camera in the nose-cone. She tried to dodge, of course; unfortunately for her, I have redefined the term 'smart missile' several times since I got my powers. The missile followed her all the way, matching her every move with precision and grace.

As intended, the explosion blew her back out through the hole in the side of the ship. With anything resembling luck, she would be stunned and deafened for the next few moments, enough to buy us a breathing space. I intended to make full use of that time.

"Winston!" I snapped the order, and my minion looked around vaguely, shaking his head in an odd fashion.

"What, boss?"

I suppressed a groan. He had neither covered his ears nor looked away from the explosion, two extremely simple precautions which I had thought that I'd long ago drummed into his admittedly idea-resistant skull. As a result _,_ as well as being hard of thinking, my idiot minion was now suffering from a ringing in his ears and spots in front of his eyes.

Neither of which was bothering _me,_ of course; my visor was designed to darken in the case of bright flashes of light, and the sound pickups had cutouts. As I said, simple precautions. But this had rendered Winston even more useless than he normally was, which I had to admit was quite a feat.

Some may be asking at this point, why exactly do I keep Winston around? To even the most casual of observers, it would be plainly obvious that he is a millstone about my neck, an obstacle to the smooth execution of even the simplest of plans. Virtually any other villain would have given the boy his marching papers by now; indeed, some of the less ethical would have included a nine-millimetre lobotomy in the deal.

There are three main reasons that Winston remains in my employ. The first is simple; a Tinker such as myself quite often requires a second set of hands. This may be to hold components in place while I apply the soldering iron, to fetch another tool when needed, or even to simply stroll to the nearest coffee shop and bring me back my chai latte. Whichever way, such assistance can be absolutely crucial at the right moment in time.

The second reason is a little less obvious, but essential all the same. Once in a while, even such an outstanding mentality as mine needs a sounding board. Devising new schemes for extracting my unfair share of wealth from the financial institutions of California takes up a not inconsiderable amount of my time. In order for such time not to be utterly wasted by an overlooked error in the planning stage, I habitually run my plans past Winston before I set them in motion. If he can pick out a flaw that I cannot compensate for, I ditch the concept before ever setting it in motion. He does not find flaws in every single one, of course, but this practice tends to save me slightly more time, expense and aggravation than I suffer in cleaning up after his blunders. He is, in truth, rather like a not quite housebroken puppy, only less appealing.

As for the third reason … well, I will merely say that his original employment was a favour to my sister to get him out of her basement, and leave it at that. May we close the topic now? Thank you.

"Pack. The. Equipment. Away," I told him, leaning close and increasing the output volume on my speakers. "I shall hold off the scary teenage girl until you are finished."

I was being sarcastic, of course. There were several more missiles queued up that would be perfectly satisfactory when it came to subduing even an Alexandria package. I doubted that she was in the company of the rest of New Wave; even as durable as she was, it was unlikely that the adults would have sent her in first. So, given that she was almost certainly flying solo this night, I foresaw little in the way of difficulty in keeping her occupied while Winston bumbled his way through the packing-up process. Especially given that there weren't any _more_ live missiles on the test rack.

A moment later, I was reminded of the old axiom regarding assumptions making an ass out of all concerned. For through the hole swept not Glory Girl, but something quite outside of my experience.

 _What in the name of Einstein, Tesla and Rutherford_ _ **is**_ _that thing?_ But even as my mind threw up the startled query, I was reacting.

The creature was in no way human. It was … I hesitated to use the word 'saurian' _,_ but there it was. Lizardlike head with an erect crest, widespread wings, red-gold scales, and a long whip-like tail. Where it had come from, I had no idea, unless it was one of those Case 53s I had been hearing about. Opening its mouth to display an inordinate amount of undoubtedly needle-sharp dentition, as well as a remarkably pink tongue, it unleashed a threatening screech. I am neither a superstitious man, nor one given to baseless fears, but that screech ran straight to my backbrain and gave me chills all the way down my spine.

Shoving Winston down so that he sprawled alongside the workbench, I ignited my flight pack and took to the air. The ship's hold in which I had set up my temporary base was not tremendously spacious, but I was able to fly around to a certain extent. Unfortunately, despite the fact that it needed to use wings, the aerial intruder also seemed able to manoeuvre freely within that space.

As I had intended, my sudden movement drew the creature's attention away from Winston and toward myself. Even as it banked toward me, I designated it with the target pipper and fired off a containment-foam missile. My initial estimation was that one should do the job – the creature wasn't that large, after all – but I followed up with a second one, just in case.

My precaution was proven timely as, just a moment later, the creature spat a small bolt of fire from its open mouth. Considerably surprised, I revised my earlier judgement. _It's not a dinosaur. It's a_ _ **dragon**_.

The fire bolt was obviously aimed at the first missile; I allowed myself a confident smile, as there was no way that my missiles would permit themselves to be decoyed into just such a mutual-destruction ploy. Fulfilling my faith in my programming skills, the missile being targeted jinked aside so as to skim past the oncoming attack … which promptly exploded into a small but intense burst of flame, destroying it anyway. _Oh, that's just_ _ **rude.**_

The second missile, having been given more lead time to respond to the dragon's fire breath – _not_ a phrase that I had ever thought I would need to make use of – swung out wider, evading the perimeter of the fiery burst. Given the relative motion of the missile and its scaly target, the draconic interloper was through the area where the first missile had been destroyed before the second one had begun to swing back in.

This was actually a good thing; by the time the missile reacquired its target, it was actually behind the flying creature, in a tail chase. Such a pursuit would be necessarily brief; manoeuvring space was limited, the missile was obviously much faster in straight-line flying than the airborne lizard, and the thing would have had to look back over what passed for its shoulder in order to target the oncoming attack.

Still, I did not allow myself to become complacent; the creature had already surprised me twice, after all. Just a moment later, my caution was rewarded as it increased its speed, arrowing toward me, pinions beating faster than ever.

 _My armour is almost certainly proof against its claws and possibly resistant to its fire breath, but if it engages, then we both get struck by the missile …_

That was a sub-optimal scenario. I popped a cloud of smoke and veered to the left so as to clear its path. My helmet switched to IR tracking, of course; for a flying reptile, the thing was remarkably warm. Behind it, the pursuing missile was a smaller, brighter spark.

The dragon-thing plunged into the cloud of smoke where I might have expected it to fly around; to my astonishment, it swerved _toward_ me. I flung out my arm defensively; there was a wrenching impact then it was gone, out the other side of the smoke. Warning messages began popping up in my HUD, even as I became vaguely aware that the draconic creature had altered its course to put me between it and the missile that was still gaining upon it. Its intent was clear; the missile was supposed to be decoyed into hitting _me_.

Less than a second later, the missile whipped past me, following its own curving path to line up once more on the interloper. I permitted myself a brief smile – _haven't heard of IFF, have you, brute? -_ but there was precious little to smile about in the messages on my heads-up display. On its way past, the flying reptile had latched on to the missile housing on my right arm and torn it completely off of my armour.

By now, I was revising my initial impression of the dragon-like creature. It was in no way a dumb animal, appearances notwithstanding. By its very actions, it was fully capable of recognising a threat, acting to deny me of a weapon and even attempting to turn said weapon on me. There was a human intelligence at work behind that scaly brow.

Talking of human intelligences, I turned my head to check on Winston. He was just at that moment pulling himself to his feet by way of the workbench, looking around dazedly to see what was going on. I watched as the draconic being swooped low over him, causing him to duck again. The missile, following the creature, also swooped low … and exploded, delivering its payload to Winston. Blobby yellowish foam scored a direct hit on my hapless minion, attaching him firmly to the floor and the workbench. Perhaps, in future, I would equip _him_ with an IFF as well.

With what I had no trouble in interpreting as a screech of triumph, the creature began a long swooping turn, obviously intending to get back to grips with me. And well it might feel triumphant; in its first pass, it had defeated two of my attacks, removed the launcher housing from my right arm, and rendered my minion _hors de combat,_ using my missile to do so. However, I still had a few tricks that it had not yet seen; with a grim smile of my own, I sent the self-destruct signal to the missing launcher housing.

The housing exploded, all the remaining missiles inside adding their propellant fuel to the detonation. Enveloped by the massive burst of flame that resulted, the interloper was flung through the air by the shockwave. It hit the deck plates and rolled over and over. I could not determine the extent of its wounds, but at that moment, I was not feeling particularly charitable.

And then, yet another surprise occurred. As the dragon lay sprawled upon the deck-plates, it began to shift and Change. Within moments, an unconscious teenager lay there, skinny and lanky but undeniably feminine. She wore a costume not unlike a bathing suit in basic black; thinking back, I recalled seeing the black colouration on the draconic being and assuming that it was part of the creature itself. This was obviously not the case.

The fact of her being human, at least part of the time, changed matters considerably; I began to descend toward the floor, to see if she was badly hurt.

"Leave her alone, you bastard!"

Too late, I recalled the other half of the equation; specifically, the Alexandria package known as Glory Girl. She came rocketing in through the hole in the side of the hull; I found myself suddenly overcome by fear and trepidation, quite unlike my usual _sang-froid._

With an impact that rang throughout my armour, she slammed into me and drove me across the width of the hold, toward the far bulkhead. I still felt the terror, but I seemed to recall that it was actually part of her powerset, to make her foes fear her. In short, I was being _made_ to experience these emotions.

 _I am my own man. I will not be made to do_ _ **anything.**_

At the last instant, I activated the side-jets on my flight pack, driving us around in a half-circle. She reacted too slowly, obviously driven more by emotion than careful planning. Before she could bring us to a halt, I had slammed her into the bulkhead, driving quite a respectable dent into it. To aid in keeping her off balance, I ejected a series of flares into her face before backing off.

As I had suspected might happen, with her confusion came a slackening in the desire to run away and hide. It was still present, but not in the near-overwhelming levels that I had been feeling before. However, she still posed a not inconsiderable problem for me; someone who was able to make me feel emotions not my own, and also physically match up to me, was in no way my preferred opponent. With that in mind, I levelled my left arm, and the missile housing mounted on it, at her; a containment-foam missile, I judged, should suffice to immobilise her for long enough for me to collect Winston and vacate the premises.

An actinic streak of blue-white plasma cut across my field of vision; my visor managed to block most of it out, but I was still left with a blob of orange in front of my eyes. This was not enough to block me from seeing the new error messages now popping up on my HUD; to my now-increasing annoyance, I saw that I had now lost the _other_ missile housing.

For variety, this one had not been torn off; instead, the plasma burst had _cut it in half._ In addition to loss-of-function messages from the housing itself, I was also getting excess-temperature readouts from the servos in the left arm of my power suit. That plasma blast had been _hot._

Looking around, I saw that the teenage girl was back in her beast-like form; crouching, she had her wings spread and her mouth open, aimed in my direction. Judging from the temperature readings I was getting from her throat, there was little doubt regarding the origins of that actinic plasma stream. _Well, she's all right. That's a good thing – I suppose._

I was beginning to regret ever having come to Brockton Bay. Not that I had been intending to commit any crimes here; given that the city held so many villains, I suspected that I would have to make an appointment to rob the local bank. As it was, my presence was more to do with making deals with some of the local criminal element. My overall aim had always been to return to San Francisco once my business in Brockton Bay was done; however, it seemed that said business was going to come to an end much sooner than anticipated.

The time had arrived, I judged, to go from an offensive stance to a defensive one. With undamaged armour and free flying room, I believed that I would be able to match up to Glory Girl on her own. Against her draconic companion, I would have more of a problem, but at the very least, I would be able to outdistance the creature so long as my fuel held out; this was the advantage of flight pack over wings. But against both of them, lacking my primary missile launchers, I was at a severe disadvantage.

With this in mind, I turned away from Glory Girl and cut in full power on my flight pack, heading for the hole in the side of the hull. I did make one slight deviation in my trajectory, to pass over Winston on my way out. As I did so, I sprayed him liberally from a nozzle secreted in the left arm of my powersuit. Within moments, the imprisoning foam would dissolve and release him to complete the evacuation procedures, as he had been drilled.

Why, yes, I _do_ keep a reservoir of containment foam dissolver in my armour. I, like the PRT, make use of containment foam; to have the means to counteract it is merely a sensible precaution.

Knowing that I had done all I could on that front, I aimed for the hole. It really was quite impressive; I was heartened to learn that my calculations regarding the missile had been accurate. Now, all I had to do was reacquire the components to build it, and I'd have something capable of punching through the side of the average bank vault.

Of course, to do that, I would first have to extract both myself and Winston from this predicament. Step one was to take the fight outside and away from him. Step two would be to either win the fight or evade both of my erstwhile opponents; I was not overly optimistic about the former, but reversals had been known to happen. However, the latter was always a good Plan B.

Step three, of course, was to rendezvous with Winston at our prearranged location, so that I could forever shake the dust of Brockton Bay from my boots. Most of the heroes I was prepared for, but going up against a teenage girl masquerading as a fire-breathing dragon was not in my life plan. Especially since said dragon had already done a remarkably good job of disarming me of both primary missile launchers.

This was not to say that I was entirely unarmed; even as I flew out through the hole into the night air, my secondary missile pods motored from their stowed positions on my back up on to my shoulders. Each held three missiles, which could be ripple-fired or independently launched.

The upside of this confrontation was that both of my opponents seemed to be rather durable; I would not have to worry so much about pulling my punches, either figuratively or literally. The downside was that I had two opponents and six missiles to go between them. After the admittedly brief confrontation, I did not trust the capability of my missiles to perform a one-shot disable on either Glory Girl or the dragon. Moreover, with the dragon's flame-breath capability factored in, I was less than confident that I could even _hit_ the creature, much less disable her.

A lesser man would have chosen surrender at this moment, while a more stupid man would have chanced an all-or-nothing attack on them as they emerged from the hole. I did neither, having acquired a certain amount of respect for the both of them. Instead, I went for distance, not wanting to delay their exit. Winston would be free of the foam soon, after all, and the last thing I wanted was for them to realise this.

Once more, I was proven correct. A tiny fireball emerged from the hole, travelling a little way before exploding with quite surprising force. Had I been waiting nearby to ambush them, I would have been caught in the explosion and accompanying fireball, quite likely to my subsequent detriment. It appeared now that the dragon girl was not limited to _small_ explosive bursts, making her all the more formidable an opponent.

As the fireball dissipated, the dragon emerged from it, not unlike a phoenix arising from the ashes. She let out a loud screech; in response, Glory Girl flew from the hole and rose to join her. From my vantage point, I targeted each with a flash-bang/HE missile, but did not fire as yet. I wanted to draw this out as long as possible.

A screech from the dragon-like creature – I refuse to believe that actual dragons exist – alerted me to the fact that she was aware of my whereabouts. This was quite impressive, considering that I was at that moment crouching in the shadows behind a large winch on the deck of another ship altogether. _I was right. She_ _ **does**_ _have some kind of sensory enhancement._ Her attack on my missile housing in the smoke had _not_ been a lucky fluke, after all.

She began to fly directly toward where I was concealed; Glory Girl quickly caught up, then flew ahead. I triggered both of my previously targeted missiles, then launched myself away with my flight pack.

The missiles swiftly closed with their designated targets, but the dragon girl was swifter still. She banked aside so that Glory Girl was not in her line of sight, then unleashed another one of her fire-bolts. I had planned for this; both missiles detected the oncoming bolt and performed evasive manoeuvres. Glory Girl did not slow down; the fire bolt sped ahead of her and detonated, missing both missiles and dissipating just as she got there. But her missile was now streaking in from the side, and the other was still on course for the dragon girl. _Who are you going to save now, yourself or your friend?_

For the longest moment, I thought that the answer would be 'neither', as the dragon girl merely banked sideways. Right up until the moment when she vaporised _both_ missiles with a single actinic tongue of blue-white flame. _Well then, that answers_ _ **that**_ _question._

One-third of my remaining armament having been disposed of with almost contemptuous ease, I decided to go with the adage of discretion being the better part of valour. Activating my terrain-avoidance software, I got down to deck level and aimed myself at the nearest large freighter.

All three of us could fly, which negated that as an advantage. However, in order to _capture_ me, they would have to _catch up_ with me. If I made that too risky, then the chances were that they would break off the chase sooner or later. In the case of the dragon girl, I hoped for 'sooner', given that there was the distinct chance that she was still annoyed with me over the exploding missile housing.

Glory Girl was close behind me when I reached the ship, with her draconic partner some little distance behind. We raced over the deck, between masts and containers and what-have-you, my terrain-avoidance software kicking in my guidance jets at just the right times. The teenager was less agile, but she was able to keep up through sheer recklessness and bull-headedness. Until, that is, I used one of my remaining missiles to target a winch. As I rocketed past, the end of the cable spool blew off, spilling coils of metal cable into a great tangle. I heard her curse as she flew headlong into the metal snarl, and I smiled to myself.

As it happened, I was celebrating too soon. One of those all-too-familiar firebolts exploded on the deck ahead of me, forcing me to swerve hastily. With a loud screech, the dragon girl dropped in behind me, uncomfortably close. I tried to accelerate, but that overtaxed my terrain-avoidance systems; clipping a corner, I nearly flung myself into a wall, but managed to recover and correct in time. Despite the close quarters, the dragon girl didn't seem to be overly hampered; at least, the flapping of her wings behind me did not falter.

I targeted my next missile at the base of a radio antenna; this should, I calculated, fall into the laneway behind me, blocking all passage, whether by humanity or annoyingly-persistent teenage dragons. At the triggering signal, the missile launched away, dead on target. The muted explosion showed that it was dead on target; the antenna began to fall.

A firebolt shot past me, toward the a point _above_ the toppling antenna. _Her aim's off if she wanted to delay that thing from falling …_

Too late, I realised that her aim was precisely on target. The explosion propelled the antenna _downward,_ blocking off the through-way to me as well as the dragon girl. There was just one place to go; upward. So I went upward. Right to where Glory Girl was waiting for me.

"Hi," she greeted me brightly. "Give up?"

At this point in time, a stupid man would have kept fighting. I had been outwitted and outmanoeuvred; with a sigh, I raised my hands.

I would be transported back to California, to face trial for my crimes there. On the way, there would undoubtedly be opportunities for escape. Winston, I was reasonably sure, would meet me at one of my safe houses, once I had freed myself.

But there was one thing of which I was certain.

You couldn't _pay_ me to come back to Brockton Bay.

* * *

 **Taylor**

* * *

"Well, that was fun," Vicky declared brightly as the PRT officers loaded Stinger into the back of the transport van. "What did you think, Wyvern?"

I let out a non-committal chirp, looking down at my now-tattered costume. While it wouldn't quite be indecent when I changed back, there was somewhat less of it than when I had started the night.

"Oh, come on," she chuckled, slapping me on the shoulder. "Costume damage happens. I lose my skirt all the time."

 _Yeah, but you wear bike pants underneath._ My squawk wasn't quite as nuanced as that, but it got the message across.

"I guess you have a point," she agreed. "My force field protects my clothing pretty well. On the other hand, you're just tough. When that thing exploded, I thought you were really badly hurt."

The concern in her voice touched me; I put a wing around her shoulders. I _had_ been knocked out for a moment, and had woken up in human form. When I saw Vicky in peril, my Change had been swift and immediate; I hadn't even had to think about it.

"So anyway," she went on, "that was awesome, what you were doing with your flame-breath. Did you figure all that out before you did it, or was it spur of the moment?"

I shrugged and let out another chirp. _A bit of column A, a bit of column B._

She was getting pretty good at guessing what I meant. "Yeah, I suppose so. But anyway, one more question before we head home."

I tilted my head interrogatively, looking down at her slightly.

"Didn't you used to be shorter?"

* * *

End of Part Nine


	10. Chapter 10

**Wyvern**

* * *

Part Ten: Changing Fortunes

* * *

I stared at her, letting out a startled squawk. My wing was draped around her shoulders, which normally I wouldn't have been able to reach in my draconic form without stretching to my tip-toes. _How did I not notice this before?_

"Hey, calm down," she said hastily. "There's probably a perfectly normal explanation for this."

This time, I gave her a very dry look; despite the difference between my human face and my Wyvern face, she picked up on it without any difficulty at all.

"Okay, _fine_ ," she admitted. "There's not much about this situation that's normal."

 _ **Thank**_ _you._ With another screech, which may or may not have conveyed that thought, I stretched my wings out and leaped into the air. Vicky followed, keeping up with ease.

"Where are you going?" she called out.

I couldn't really shrug while flying, so I let out a non-committal squawk. _Somewhere I can figure this out._

"Sorry," she said, "I must've left my Wyvern-Human dictionary in my other costume. Can you be a bit clearer?"

I couldn't talk, and I didn't feel like acting out charades to get my message across, so I turned my attention to flying. To my gratitude, Vicky didn't push it. She merely flew alongside me as I flapped steadily across Brockton Bay.

It was going to take a little while to reach my chosen destination, but I didn't mind. I had a lot to think about, including what I was going to say once I returned to human form. If I even could. _Oh god, what if this size change stops me from ever turning back?_

The city stretched out below us, skeins of street lights making the place almost beautiful. I wished that I was down there, mundanely human, instead of up here, trying to run away from my problems. Given that my problems were part and parcel with my powers, the odds of me pulling this off were between zero and none, but I was still willing to give it a shot.

The sound of electronic tapping interrupted my thoughts; I looked over to see that Vicky was texting on her phone while flying on her back, not even looking where she was going. I screeched at her.

"What?" She looked up from her phone. "What's the matter?"

I nodded toward her phone, then pointedly turned my head to look forwards.

It took her a couple of seconds to catch on, then she laughed and rolled over in the air so that she was at least facing the same way as me. "Oh, that? I knew you wouldn't let me fly into anything."

She was right, but I still thought she was being very irresponsible. My squawk might have conveyed that, but I wasn't sure.

To my relief, she didn't do anything like that again, although she did keep texting. Finally, she put the phone away and gave me a beaming smile. "I was just letting Mom and Ames know we were going for a flight. I haven't told them about the size change yet."

I chirped in relief; it was something that I would rather have told them myself. First, though, I wanted to try to deal with it on my own. With Vicky there to help, of course; I was reasonably sure that I wouldn't be able to make her go away. Even if I wanted to.

Finally, our destination loomed ahead. It was further than I had ever flown before, but while my shoulder muscles were burning slightly, I felt that I could have kept going if necessary.

There was nobody in the carpark for the Captain's Hill observation area, for which I was profoundly grateful. The last thing I wanted or needed was for someone to post photos of me on to PHO or something before I had my size issues resolved. Flapping my wings, I came in for a landing on the observation area, putting down my 'elbows' to prop myself up as Glory Girl touched down beside me.

"Okay, let's see if that was a temporary thing," she said brightly. I straightened up as much as I was able in that form. To my dismay, she was still half a head shorter than me. I let out a sound of dismay.

"Hey, hey, it'll be all right," she assured me. "We'll get through this. We're friends, right? We'll work it out together."

Friends.

I had to stop and think about it. We were definitely more than just fellow capes or even teammates. Vicky had, in her own inimitable fashion, gone above and beyond for me. From the moment that she'd found out that I was more than just a scary monster, she'd done her best to help me solve my problems. Sure, she'd had a lot of laughs over my mishaps, but she'd never been cruel or vindictive.

It was hard for me to take in. I hadn't had an actual _friend_ for … more than a year. And to gain one through a malicious act engineered by my _last_ best friend … it was hard for me to get my head around that. It had been so long since anyone who wasn't my dad had even _cared._

"Hey, you're shaking. Are you all right? You're not cold, are you?"

I raised my head and looked into Vicky's concerned eyes. If I could cry in that form, I would have, but instead I was shaking, with my wings wrapped around me. I shook my head. _No, I'm not cold._

"Then what's the matter, Taylor?"

I couldn't answer her with words, so I just shook my head again. Even if I'd been human, I probably wouldn't have been able to give her a coherent reply. _I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to deal with this._

A pair of arms, far stronger than they should have been, wrapped around me, wings and all. I let out a startled chirp, but she didn't stop hugging me. "Hey," she soothed me. "Hey, hey. It's all right. You're going to be all right. 'Cause Glory Girl is here, and that's what I do."

I managed a series of chirps approximating laughter, but the truth was that I _was_ feeling better. The hug was just what I needed to get my head in order and stop the thoughts spinning around at a thousand miles an hour. I began to relax, little by little.

That was when she turned her aura up. From enjoying what could have been a totally awkward hug but wasn't, I went straight into _everything is awesome!_ land. Vicky was my friend, and that was more than okay, it was terrific. All of my worries and angst about my size change melted away, because Vicky was there and she was _amazing_ and everything was gonna be just okay, and …

I was crying. I realised that, after a moment. I was holding on to Vicky with my _arms,_ and I was crying into Vicky's shoulder, and she was patting me on the back and saying something soothing in my ear.

The aura toned back down to its normal almost-not-there background buzz, and I pulled away from Vicky slightly. "Wait, did you just make me turn back with your aura?"

She nodded, grinning broadly. "I figured, if we can turn you into the wyvern with my aura, we should be able to make you turn back with it too. And it worked. High-five!" She held up her hand.

I smiled through the tears still on my cheeks and gave her the high-five. After all, she _had_ kind of earned it. "It definitely did," I agreed. "And wow, your aura's really powerful this close. How the hell do you _not_ have legions of adoring fans sending you love letters by the metric ton?"

She gave me a conspiratorial grin. "Maybe I do. You never know. But I think your wyvern form's more susceptible to it or something. You definitely seem to react more strongly when you're in that shape, anyway."

Swiping tears from my eyes, I nodded. "Well, thanks. And sorry for crying on you."

"Pfft," she said, waving away my apology. "You were kinda worried and stressed out. And hey! You're back to normal size again!"

I blinked, then opened the pouch holding my glasses. Unfortunately, the fight had not been kind to them; I guessed that it was the close-up explosion that had left the lenses in pieces. All I knew for certain was that when I pulled the glasses out, they didn't have much glass left in them.

"Geez, wow," Vicky observed when she saw this. "Sorry about that. That's gotta suck."

"Yeah, well, it's not like I'm gonna need them to fly back with, right?" I said, trying to put a brave face on matters. "Anyway, I can tell that I'm back to normal without them. You're still shorter than me, but not any shorter than usual."

She made a rude noise. "Just because _you're_ built like a giraffe on steroids ..."

I snorted. "Giraffe on steroids? Really?"

"Hey, gimme a break. Normally I get more time to think up my zingers."

Shaking my head fondly, I draped my arm over her shoulders. "Well, I appreciate you sticking by me. And I really appreciate you as a friend. I haven't got many others. Well, apart from Amy, I haven't really got _any_ other friends."

"Yeah, well, I'd like to punch Winslow in its stupid face for pulling all that crap on you," she muttered.

"Who?" I asked, interested. "Blackwell, Emma, or Sophia?"

" _Yes,"_ she retorted.

I couldn't help it; I had to laugh out loud. "Not that I wouldn't love to see any or all of them get punched in the face repeatedly, but I'm pretty sure that doing anything like that would screw up the case that your mom's preparing."

She sighed. "Yeah, you're right."

I ruffled her hair playfully. "Cheer up. I'm sure we can find someone else for you to punch in the face if we really try."

"Yeah, I like the sound of that," she said. "You up for any more night-time shenanigans, or should we head home?"

"Well, home, I guess," I said. "Dad can pick me up from your place. But first, we've got that other thing to do."

"Other thing?" she asked.

"Find out if the size change was permanent or temporary," I reminded her. "And what happens if I keep sizing up each time I get into a fight? Pretty soon, even Parian's costumes won't fit me in both forms."

"Ugh." She grimaced. "You make a good point. Unwelcome, but good."

I sighed. "Okay, I think I've stalled enough. Time to kick this over."

"Need me to force it for you?" she asked; I could feel her aura starting to ramp up.

"No," I said, shaking my head hastily. "I need to learn to do this as fast as possible, and I won't always have you around."

"Okay, good point," she agreed. The aura eased back down again.

I turned away from her, suddenly aware that the rough gravel was hurting my feet. _Come on,_ I told myself. _I can do this. I've done it before._ It was true, and I knew it. I just didn't want to _do_ it.

 _Come on,_ I told myself. _I've got to stress myself to make the change. Stop wimping out._

The prospect wasn't fun, but eventually I managed to force myself to bite the bullet and concentrate on the memories and feelings that I needed to experience. Closing my eyes, I clenched my fists until the nails bit into my palms.

It was ironic, some corner of my mind reflected bitterly even as I tried to focus on the Change. Super-powers were supposed to make your life easier. Popular culture said so. But I had gotten mine through an act of supreme cruelty, and to even _access_ them, I had to force myself to recall and relive the worst experiences of my life. _So much for making things_ _ **better**_ _._ I wondered if that had ever been true for any cape. Or if I would ever be truly free of the torments that had put me where I was.

Opening my eyes, I turned toward Vicky to ask her where she stood on the matter, but all that came out of my mouth was a curious chirp. Once more, I had managed to Change without even noticing that I had done so.

"Woo!" Vicky gave me a thumbs-up. "Normal size. Nicely done."

I hadn't actually _done_ anything, but I preened just a little anyway. I had to admit, I was somewhat relieved; the prospect of my wyvern form growing ever larger with no end in sight was somewhat daunting, to say the least. But now I was looking _up_ at Vicky, due to the unavoidable stooped posture of the wyvern form. It was amazing what I was beginning to find comfortably familiar.

I raised my wrist-joint to her in a kind of high-five; she grinned and slapped it. My return grin was extremely toothy, accompanied by a chirp of triumph. Now that I was back to normal size, I found that I wasn't worried so much about enlarging during fights. _All I have to do is Change back to human, then to wyvern when I'm not in danger. No biggie._

"So, race you back home?" Vicky's eyes were alight with mischief.

I gave her a rude noise in return. _Like I could ever beat you._

"Okay, okay," she conceded. "We'll fly back together. But if we spot any bad guys, I've got dibs, all right?"

I rolled my eyes. _**So**_ _greedy._

"Well?" she pressed.

Snorting with amusement, I nodded, then chirped in agreement. _Fine. But if any get away, they're mine._

"Cool! Let's go!"

She lofted into the air and arrowed down into the darkness overlaying Brockton Bay. She was quickly out of sight, or would have been if I'd been dependent on ordinary light. However, as I had already discovered, I could see some distance into the infra-red, which revealed her to me as if she was lit up like a halogen lamp.

Flapping my wings hard, I took to the air myself and let myself fall into a swooping glide down the face of Captain's Hill. I couldn't match Vicky's pace, but I could certainly follow her; the night wind felt soothing as it keened over my wings. Glancing over her shoulder, Vicky slowed down, letting me catch up with her.

As I slid up alongside her, I let out a disapproving squawk. _Not fair! You said we wouldn't race!_

"Sorry," she called back. "I kinda got carried away for a moment." Her teeth shone white in the moonlight. "I'm not about to leave my partner behind, after all."

 _Partners._ The warm feeling lasted me all the way back to the Dallon household.

* * *

"Are you all right?"

That was Dad's greeting for me when he came in the front door. Not 'how are you?' or 'good to see you' but 'are you all right?'.

I was a little torn between irritation – _I can take care of myself!_ \- and happiness that he actually _cared._ Of the two, I wanted to go with happiness, so I did. Plastering a smile across my face, I hugged him.

"Of _course_ I'm all right, Dad. I've got Glory Girl backing me up, and Panacea making sure that I'm always in tip-top condition."

* * *

I wasn't actually exaggerating much there; Amy had more or less ambushed me, even before I'd managed to change back to human form, to make sure that I was healthy. It turned out that I was indeed in top form, so much so that she managed to look slightly disappointed.

"I saw the aftermath of the battle on TV," she complained after I was changed, dressed and we were sitting on the sofa. "There was lots of damage. How can you have gone through all of that without a scratch? Especially with your costume in that shape?"

I blushed a little. The costume hadn't been _that_ badly damaged, and it had covered what it needed to cover, but I had still arrived at the house showing more skin than I was used to. "Um, Vicky and I have a theory that I regenerate. Especially between Changes."

"And that's another thing!" she blurted. "You altered your Changer shape, and I never got to see what it looked like! Do you know how often I get to deal with someone who's got a non-human form? Especially _multiple_ non-human forms? Come on, seriously. I need a _challenge,_ here!" She paused to take in what I said. "Wait, you regenerate? Oh, come on now. That's just not _fair!"_

"Well, I don't want to have to keep running back to you to get healing," I pointed out. "That's not fair on you, you know."

"Yeah, but I'm almost certain you're pulling mass out of nowhere to make your Change," she said. "Maybe if I could look at you when you're larger, I could figure it out one way or the other."

Vicky, grinning broadly, spoke up then. "So what you're saying is that you're less worried about Taylor's well-being and more about how her power reacts weirdly with her biology?"

"No!" Amy protested. We looked at her sceptically, and she flushed. "Well, maybe a little?"

I rolled my eyes theatrically. "I _knew_ it! You're only interested in my body."

Vicky burst out laughing. Amy went beet red from hairline to neck, and threw a cushion at me. I retaliated, and then it was on.

* * *

"I dunno," Dad observed slyly. "I walked in the door to see Panacea beating you about the head with a cushion. I'm not sure how this sort of thing works in the cape world, but is that _really_ how your healers treat their patients?"

"Only the ones who regenerate, Mr H," Vicky interjected shamelessly. "Turns out that your daughter's either a lot tougher than we thought, or she heals really fast. Or maybe both."

"Plus, it's a good way to get me used to ordinary stress," I said. "If being smacked in the face with a pillow doesn't make me change involuntarily, then tripping in the corridor won't do it either, you see?"

"Uh huh. And of course, we're not taking into account the fact that pillow fights are just plain fun, right?" Dad's voice was very dry. "I might be old, but I'm not _that_ old." His voice turned serious. "You regenerate? Is that dangerous? Are there side effects? How do you even know that you regenerate?"

I shrugged, flopping back down on to the couch. "Well, you know that we talked about it before. This time around I got caught in an explosion again, which knocked me out. Vicky says that I changed back for a moment, then I woke up, changed again, and got back into the fight. I personally don't remember much of the fight. It was all a blur."

Dad looked startled. "Whoa, hold it right there. Time _out."_ He even made the 'T' sign with his hands, a thing he hadn't done in years. This should have clued me in to how agitated he was. "Explosions? What the … No!" He shook his head almost angrily. "This was _not_ what I agreed to." Turning his gaze to me, he more or less pinned me to the couch with his glare. _"Explosions?!"_

I could tell that he was on the edge of an explosion of his own, and I tried to defuse it. "It's all right, Dad. I wasn't hurt, really. It was like the last time, when I blew up the locker."

"You. Got. Knocked. Out. This. Time." He gritted the words through clenched teeth.

"But I got back up again," I pointed out. "Straight away, even. Look, not a scratch!" I slid the sleeve of my t-shirt up my arm and showed him the unmarked skin. "Nothing at all. I'm _all right,_ Dad!"

" _I don't care!"_ he screamed. "You still got hurt!"

"I'm a superhero now!" I yelled back at him. "I'm not a little kid any more!"

"You're _my_ little kid!" He took a sharp breath, then continued before I could interrupt. "And until you turn eighteen, you do _not_ get to risk yourself like that!"

"Hey, hey," interjected Mrs Dallon from the doorway to her office. "What's going on here?"

Dad swung toward her. "Explosions that knocked her out!" Even though he wasn't looking at me, his finger swung unerringly to point in my direction, stabbing at me with every word. "Is _that_ your idea of a safe introduction to being a superhero?"

"No. It isn't." Mrs Dallon's expression was never the warmest, but now her voice hit sub-zero temperatures. "Victoria, you didn't tell me about _any_ of this. It was supposed to be a shakedown flight, not a patrol for crime. You _knew_ you weren't supposed to do anything dangerous on Taylor's first flight as a member of New Wave."

"First _and_ last," muttered Dad. "If I don't get an ironclad guarantee that this is never going to happen again."

"Dad -" I ventured.

"No!" His voice could have carved plate steel. "I lost your mother. I'm not losing _you!"_

"Mom. Seriously." Glory Girl spread her hands, the very picture of innocence. "The guy blew out the side of a ship while we were flying over it. What were we _supposed_ to do?"

Dad swung toward her, his expression furious, but Mrs Dallon got there first. "Victoria. Go to your room. Now."

"But -"

" _Now."_

Vicky began to float up from the sofa; Brandish cut in sharply. "And no flying, or you're grounded for a month. Literally."

Not daring to say a word, I watched as Glory Girl dropped to the ground and trudged toward the stairs. She was halfway up them when her mother turned to me. Mrs Dallon's voice was still stern, but held less of an edge as she spoke to me. "Taylor, please join her. This is between your father and myself." As I stood up, I saw her glance at Amy, then toward the stairs. Looking resigned, Amy stood up as well.

* * *

I joined Vicky in her room; as I closed the door, she flopped on to the bed with a gusty sigh. "So, what do you want to do tomorrow night?"

I stared at her, not quite sure if she was pulling my leg. "You have got to be joking."

"No, seriously," she said, lifting herself on to her elbows and looking at me. "It'll all blow over by then. So what do you want to do? Hit the Merchants for real?"

Leaning against the wardrobe, I slid downward until I was resting on the floor. "This is _not_ going to blow over any time soon. I can't _remember_ the last time I saw Dad this pissed. Like, _ever._ I'll be lucky if I'm allowed out as a superhero before my _wedding_ day."

She frowned at me. "I didn't know you had a boyfriend?"

I glared right back. "I _don't."_

"Oh." She took a moment; I hoped that she was beginning to realise the level of trouble we were in. "Um. So, um, how bad do you think it's gonna get? Grounded for a week?"

I facepalmed. She _still_ didn't get it. "Pretty sure that I'm out of New Wave. For starters."

"Wait, _what?"_ She sat up in horror. "But – but, that's not even _fair!_ You weren't even _hurt!"_

"Do you think that's gonna matter to him?" I shook my head. "You heard him down there. My mom died a few years ago. Even the _suggestion_ that I might get hurt's going to set him off. Telling him I got knocked out was a mistake. A _huge_ mistake."

There was a soft tap at the door. Vicky raised her head. "Come in, Ames."

The door opened briefly as Amy slipped inside. "Oh, good," she said. "You're dressed."

As a joke, it fell kind of flat. From downstairs, I heard my father's voice.

" _\- no way in hell I'm gonna let -"_

It closed again, cutting off his tirade. I looked between Vicky and Amy. "So, how good a lawyer _is_ your mom? Because it's gonna take a really good one to get around Dad when he's in a mood like this."

"What are you talking about?" asked Amy cautiously. "Your dad's gonna calm down some time soon, right?"

"Nuh uh." I shook my head. "He's got a temper. Doesn't show it off much, but when he goes off, he goes off _big._ First time I've been on the wrong end of it, though."

"Mom's a pretty good lawyer," Vicky said complacently. "She should be able to work around your dad pretty easily."

Amy pulled the chair out from the desk and turned it around, sitting down and resting her arms across the back. "Taylor, isn't your dad in the Dockworkers Association or something?"

I nodded. "Yeah. He's head of hiring." I looked over at Vicky. "And before you ask, he's done his share of negotiations."

"But nothing in the courtroom, right?" Vicky's voice was hopeful.

I snorted bitterly. "He doesn't _do_ courtroom rules. Why is it, do you think, that none of the gangs in Brockton Bay have ever gotten a toehold in the Association?"

Vicky opened her mouth and closed it again. No-one spoke. The silence in the room was so complete that I could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall over the distant sound of raised voices from downstairs.

" … _none_ of them?" Vicky had found her voice at last. "Really?"

"Really." I looked her in the eye. "So I'm not so sure that your mom's gonna win this one, you know?"

"If he makes you quit New Wave, what do you think you'll do?" asked Amy.

I shrugged. "Dunno. Go back to Winslow, I guess. I can't see your mom pushing through my case if I'm not in New Wave any more." The admission pained me even more than the idea of being forced out of the team that I'd just joined, but I couldn't see any way out of it.

"She wouldn't do that … would she?" Vicky stared at me. "I mean, you _need_ Mom's help on this."

"And if it was a superhero thing, she'd probably jump in to help me," I said. "But this is a _lawyer_ thing. Something she usually gets _paid_ for. And I'm pretty sure that Dad can't pay for her time on this sort of thing. I know for a fact that _I_ can't. So, case closed. They win. Hell, Emma won't even know that there was a court case to begin with. _Fuck."_ Closing my eyes, I bumped my head backward against the wardrobe.

"Mom _said_ it was for damages," Vicky reminded me. "You and your dad don't have to pay up straight away. She'll just take her cut from what you guys get out of the girls and the school."

I grimaced. "Not if Dad pisses her off so much that she decides not to take the case after all."

"You could still try to apply for Arcadia anyway." There wasn't much optimism in Amy's voice, but I gave her a weak smile for trying.

"Yeah, I could." I sighed. "I mean, Winslow'll be closed for a few days. It might be worth a shot." My grimace deepened as a thought occurred to me. "Of course, Emma and Sophia and Madison could _also_ apply to Arcadia. Which means nothing changes."

"Hell yes, something changes," Vicky said. "I'll be there. So will Ames. And a lot of my friends. I'd like to see this Emma bitch trying anything on you with _them_ on your side."

"Until she gets them on side and turns them against me." My prediction was gloomy, but I had bitter experience to back me up.

Vicky shook her head. "Not gonna happen." Her voice was filled with confidence. "My friends are better than that. Tell her, Ames."

Amy didn't hesitate. "She's right about that. Her friends are about as likely to turn on you as Kaiser is to give up crime and open a kosher hot-dog stand in partnership with Inago."

"Wow. That's pretty unlikely, all right," I admitted.

Vicky tilted her head. "Your dad's not yelling any more."

I turned my head, listening. "You're right. Though I'm not so sure that it's a good thing."

"I think -" Amy paused, then kept going. "I think someone's coming upstairs."

I had the impression that she'd been about to say something else, but she was right anyway. Moments after she spoke, there were footsteps in the corridor outside, then a brisk knock on the door. Amy got up and opened it.

Mrs Dallon stood in the doorway. I tried to work out how the argument had gone from her expression, but she gave absolutely nothing away. "Taylor, Victoria, please come downstairs now."

 _It's not gonna be good news, is it?_ Slowly … reluctantly … I climbed to my feet. Vicky made a move as if to levitate directly off the bed, then caught her mother's gaze. Carefully, she planted her feet firmly on the floor and got up that way.

I was the first downstairs, followed by Vicky. Mrs Dallon followed us, with Amy trailing in the rear. Dad stood in the living room, his hands behind his back as he faced us. From what I knew of him, given the tension of that posture, his hands would be clenching each other tightly enough to cut off the circulation.

"Sit." Mrs Dallon pointed at the couch. Vicky and I sat. Wonder of wonders, Vicky didn't even try to argue. "Now, Vicky. Tell me what you did wrong."

This wasn't what I was expecting. From Vicky's expression, nor was she. She opened her mouth, then shut it again. Even though I'd known her for less than a day, I could imagine the phrase _but we didn't do anything wrong_ trembling to be let out. However, I knew beyond a doubt that this would be the worst possible thing to say. I hoped that she did too.

Vicky's expression was agonised. She wasn't stupid – far from it – but it seemed to me that she wasn't used to being called to account on her actions. Trying to figure out what she had done wrong, instead of blithely assuming that she was free and clear on all accounts, was obviously new territory for her.

"I guess …" Vicky paused, feeling her way. "Attacking Stinger like we did … we should have called for backup?"

Mrs Dallon folded her arms. "Correct. You should have called for backup. Or called nine-one-one. Or waited and observed. More or less _anything_ except dive right in. Which is what I'm guessing you _did_ do."

I had to admit that she knew her daughter pretty well. But I _had_ dived in after Vicky, so I felt obliged to back her up. "Uh, may I say something?"

"A moment, Taylor." Mrs Dallon didn't shift her gaze from Vicky. "Are you aware of how _badly_ things could have gone in that fight? You could have been hurt or killed. _Taylor_ could have been hurt or killed. You're just lucky – both of you are – that you encountered a villain who was relatively easy to beat, and that Taylor's power allowed her to survive the explosion."

Vicky mumbled something under her breath.

"Speak up," snapped Brandish.

"Taylor's immune to explosions," Vicky muttered. "She blew up her locker with her in it. She survived _that."_

There was a crackle and a snap as Brandish created a thin blade of pure energy from her own hand. Dad and I stared at it; it was a stark reminder that Vicky's mom really was a superhero in her own right, and was speaking from experience. With a quick, brutal movement, she stabbed the blade into her other palm; it fizzled out on contact. "Taylor may be immune to her _own_ power, but you had no way of knowing that she was immune to explosions in general. In fact, we still don't know if she _is,_ or if it's just her regeneration that allowed her to survive this one. Do you see my point now?"

Vicky's eyes were wide. "Uh, yeah," she managed, then swallowed. "I screwed up, didn't I?"

"Uh, Mrs Dallon?" I raised my hand this time.

Mrs Dallon ignored my interjection, keeping her eyes on Vicky. "Yes. You did." Only then did she turn to look at me. "Yes, Taylor?"

My mouth had unaccountably gone dry. I tried to moisten my lips. "Uh, I just wanted to say that the guy – Stinger – was pretty slick. If we'd waited around, he would've been ready for whoever came after him. I could be wrong, but I think hitting him as early as we did made it a lot harder for him to prepare a response."

"That may well be." Mrs Dallon was well into Brandish mode by now. "But there's a time and a place to engage the enemy. Victoria should not have done what she did. Taking an inexperienced teammate into battle against an unknown foe, as she did, was foolish in the extreme. It would have been better if she'd gone in alone and left you outside. Not _much_ better, but some. Because I'd prefer he gets away than either one of you gets hurt or killed."

I saw her point. We _had_ been reckless, and it could've gone badly wrong. "Oh. Oh, yeah. I see what you mean."

Her expression was more like a smile than a frown, but only just. "Good." She turned and gestured to Dad, who hadn't moved from the spot. "Danny, you had something to say?"

I began to wonder what was going on here. This didn't sound like the preamble to me being removed from New Wave.

Dad stepped forward. To my relief, he didn't look quite as angry as he had been before. But that wasn't to say that he looked _happy._ He cleared his throat roughly. "Mrs Dallon and I have had an in-depth discussion over your future in this team, Taylor."

 _My future_ _ **in**_ _the team?_ Hope burst inside me. "Does that mean -" I began.

He held up his hand, palm out, and I shut up.

"Now, I am not in the least bit thrilled that you'll be going into danger." His hand went back to his side, and I saw his knuckles clench. "But Mrs Dallon has impressed upon me the fact that unless they're given an outlet, your powers _will_ manifest and you _will_ use them, and not necessarily on purpose."

I hadn't known that. Daring to glance sideways, I caught Vicky's eye. _Is this true?_ She gave me the slightest of nods. But Dad was still talking. I got the strong impression that he didn't _want_ to say what he was saying, but that he knew that he _had_ to.

"We talked about putting you in the Wards, but she pointed out in the strongest possible terms that forcing you into a team, where you would very likely resent both them and me, would be worse than simply having you on your own." He paused. "Unless you _want_ to join the Wards?" His tone was hopeful.

 _As opposed to joining New Wave?_ I shook my head swiftly. "No. They'll want to poke and prod me. They might not even let me be a hero."

From the look on his face, he wasn't averse to me being kept out of the line of fire. "We didn't think so." _But it was worth a try._ He didn't say the words, but I heard them loud and clear anyway. "So, the only other option is to let you stay in New Wave." He didn't sound happy, but nor did he seem angry about it any more. His tone was more resigned than anything. "But there's going to have to be some conditions."

I had been just about to leap up and hug him, and then maybe Vicky – Mrs Dallon did not come across as the most huggable of people – until he said those last words. They were more than a little ominous. "Uh, conditions?" I ventured.

Mrs Dallon stepped forward. "Your father has expressed his reservations about Victoria's level of judgement in the field." For all that I knew nothing about the law, I was pretty sure that I could decipher her lawyer-speak. _He thinks she's a reckless idiot._ Vicky shifted uncomfortably on the couch beside me; I figured that she'd heard the same unspoken judgement as I had.

"However," Brandish continued, "you _do_ work well together, so we've decided to let that state of affairs continue. With, as your father said, conditions." She fixed me with an unrelenting stare. "You're home by ten every school night. You pay attention to your grades. And when you do go out, someone else goes with the pair of you. Someone responsible."

"Oh, that's easy," Vicky said, perhaps a little too hastily. "Ames can come along."

"I hardly think that Amy could keep you in check if you decided to go your own way," her mother corrected her. Vicky slumped very slightly; I suspected that she'd had that same thought herself.

"No." Mrs Dallon's voice was firm. "We had in mind someone more adult. A flyer would be ideal, given that both of you are also flyers."

"So, Crystal or Aunt Sarah then." Vicky looked back at her mother. "Have you _asked_ them if they want to chaperone us?"

"If they're unwilling, then the choices are either Manpower, your father, myself or not going out at all." Brandish wasn't giving an inch. "Those are your options. They are not negotiable."

"Uh, I'm good with someone coming out with us," I said quickly. "I am really new to this, so I'll take all the pointers I can get."

"Uh, yeah, what she said." Vicky didn't sound enthusiastic, but at least she was agreeing.

"Very well, then." Mrs Dallon nodded in curt approval. "We'll give you your chance."

Unspoken were the words: _Don't screw it up._

I didn't intend to.

* * *

End of Part Ten


	11. Chapter 11

**Wyvern**

* * *

Part Eleven: Show and Tell

* * *

 _[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]_

* * *

 **Dallon Household  
The Next Morning**

* * *

"Taylor, what's the matter?" Vicky's voice was full of concern. She hovered over me, almost literally, while I paced back and forth. I was wearing the bathrobe she had given me; if it was any fluffier, I might just have drifted away on the breeze.

"I don't know," I said. "Everything. Maybe. Fuck!" My thoughts whirled in my head. "I'm going to to your school today. To Arcadia. As the wyvern." As my agitation grew, I found myself speaking in shorter, choppier sentences. _Ugh. Me caveman. Me no English good._

"Yes," she said, putting her hand on my shoulder. "What's the problem with that? It's not like you'll have to stand up and make a speech." That wasn't my problem at all, but before I could articulate that, Amy cut in.

"Even if she does," Amy said, spraying a few crumbs on the table from the muffin she was eating, "it'll go something like this." Pursing her lips, she let out a series of weird noises.

A few seconds later, I got what she was trying to do. "I do _not_ sound like that!" I said hotly. "I don't, do I, Vicky?" Looking at the blonde, my heart sank; she was giggling.

"You kinda do, actually," she admitted. "A little bit, anyway." Breaking into a smile, she hugged me, bathrobe and all. "But they'll be more interested in the fact that you're a dragon."

"A _wyvern,"_ I corrected her, but my heart wasn't in it. "There's a difference." A difference that I hadn't been aware of two days ago, but still a difference.

"I _know_ that, you doofus," she said fondly. "But they won't. I'm betting you're gonna have to explain the different about two dozen times." My heart sank. Surely she wasn't serious. I'd thought people going to Arcadia were _smart._

"And three times just for Dennis' benefit," Amy put in cheerfully. That surprised me; I'd thought Amy was nicer than that, even if she was just joking. "And even then he'll want you to prove it by setting fire to something."

I frowned, not sure that I liked where this was going. "Um, I really don't think that I should do that. People might get hurt."

Amy's eyes were alight with mischief. "Well, you could set fire to _Dennis._ That would prove you can do it, and stop him from bothering you. Win-win situation. And I'd heal him afterwards. Maybe."

"Amy!" I protested. "You're joking, right?" I really hoped that she was. Because if she wasn't, then this Dennis guy must really deserve it. I wasn't sure if I wanted to be in the same school as someone like that. "Vicky, tell me she's joking."

Vicky let me go and put her finger on her chin. "Hmm. You know what? Feel free to set fire to Dennis. I'm good with that idea."

I stared at her. "You're not serious." She had to be messing with me. Both of them did. I'd spent way too much time with them to think anything else.

A moment later, I was proven right as Vicky burst into giggles. "No, we're not. Dennis isn't that bad. He's just a bit of a _boy_ sometimes."

"Most boys are, in my experience," I replied dryly. "Is this guy one of your friends?" _One of the people they swore would not turn against me?_

"Actually, yeah, he is." Vicky's voice was blithe. "I mean, he can be annoying as crap, but his heart's in the right place." She smiled at me and spread her hands. "I think you'll get along with him. With all of our friends."

"That remains to be seen." I wasn't holding out much hope. Prior experience had given me too much reason to be pessimistic.

"Well, _this_ time around, you don't have to worry about talking to anyone," Vicky said brightly. "Just be yourself. And, you know, don't bite anyone. Unless you really have to." I had to admit, she could do the innocent tone of voice really well. She almost sounded serious.

"I've never bitten _anyone,"_ I reminded her firmly. "Not even as the wyvern. Jeez, I could take someone's _hand_ off." I shuddered at the thought.

"And then cauterise it straight away," Amy pointed out. I shot her a sharp glance; she innocently took a bite out of her toast. Her poker face was a lot better than Vicky's.

"So it's going to be _fine,"_ Vicky assured me. She put her arm around my shoulders. "Me and Ames will be with you all day. Where's the problem?"

I took a deep breath. "The _problem_ is that Stinger's explosions kind of put some holes in my costume. As if you didn't already know. And I am _not_ going to school in that, even if I never turn back to human for the whole day." Almost unconsciously, I clutched the bathrobe a little more tightly around myself.

"Oh, is _that_ all?" Vicky burst out laughing. I stared at her. This wasn't something to laugh about. This was _serious,_ damn it.

"Yeah," I said. "That's all. I don't want to have my first appearance at Arcadia be in a costume that's all tattered and …" My voice trailed off as Vicky reached into her bag, which was sitting on the counter. Triumphantly, she produced something made of cloth; with a flick, it unrolled on to the table.

"You were saying?" she asked smugly. Which, to be honest, she'd earned. On the table in front of me was a copy of my damaged costume, only in white. On the front was a silhouette of me – or at least, something with a long tail and widespread batlike wings – in red, with gold edging. "Flew over there and picked it up this morning, before you woke up."

I looked down at it, then back up at her. If her grin became any wider, I figured she'd need Panacea's help to get it back to normal. "You cheeky cow," I accused her. "You _knew_ I was freaking out about the costume all the time. And you let me get all worked up anyway."

Vicky's level of smugness went up another notch. "Yup. It was all for a good cause, honest."

I rolled my eyes as I picked up the costume. It looked like it would fit, and the heavy zippers down each side seemed to be the same as on my first one. But I was still a little pissed at Vicky. "Oh, _this_ should be good."

"Well, it seemed to be a good idea to see if you'd turn into the wyvern if we were teasing you just a bit," Amy put in from where she was sitting. "Better than having it happen if you got stressed out at the mall or something, right?"

I stared at her, feeling just a little betrayed. Amy had seemed to be the safe one, the quiet one. "You too? I'd expect this sort of shit off Vicky. But _you?"_

Amy shrugged just a little. "Hey, I like a joke as much as the next person."

"And you have to admit, it was for a good cause," Vicky reminded me. "Unlike us, you've got a secret identity to maintain." She wasn't grinning any more; her voice was totally serious.

Even if I didn't want to admit it, she had a good point. "Yeah, but you both still suck." I ran the costume through my hands. "Anyway, thanks. I appreciate it." Even so, I decided that I _would_ get my revenge at some point. Once I figured out how.

* * *

Arcadia looked weird from the air. The buildings were pretty high, but instead of one big solid block, they were kind of like a giant skinny capital 'H'. There was a substantial fence around the whole school, including the playing fields, which looked reasonably well-maintained. Winslow had a fence too; it was a lot lower, and whole sections of it were basically non-existent. As were the playing fields.

From the air, the school actually looked kind of pretty. I had no doubt that it would be somewhat less so, once I got down to ground level. That was true for anywhere, not just Arcadia. The urge was strong just to keep flying, to bypass the school altogether and go … where? Home? Dad wouldn't be there, and I couldn't guarantee to be able to change back to human form. Even if I didn't out myself, I would certainly draw unwanted attention.

"So you ready for your big debut?" Vicky, flying alongside with Amy in her arms, sounded absurdly cheerful.

I replied with a screech that I hoped got the message across. _I've already debuted. Twice, even._

"What did she say?" asked Vicky, looking down at Amy.

The healer shrugged. "Um … maybe something about how this isn't exactly her first time out in public?" She threw me an apologetic look. "Just spitballing here."

 _Well, you basically got it right._ I nodded, adding a chirp of agreement.

"Well, _duh,"_ Vicky agreed. "But this is the first time you're actually deliberately meeting the public as a member of New Wave." She slowed and began to descend toward the main gates. I flared my wings and followed her down.

"Uh, well, there was that -" began Amy tentatively.

"As a _fully costumed_ member of New Wave," Vicky amended her own statement. "In public. With no criminals to fight, powered or otherwise."

"Wow, gee, specific much?" asked Amy dryly. She grinned as Vicky poked her tongue out at her. "Just saying."

"Well, if you're going to be _nitpicky,"_ Glory Girl said, and pretended to be about to drop her. Amy shrieked in mock fear and clutched her sister around the neck.

Snickering to myself, I glided in for a landing; when I was just above the ground, I backwinged to stop my forward motion, landed relatively neatly, and furled my wings. In the meantime, Vicky had landed nearby and dropped Amy on to her feet.

"That was _mean,"_ Amy said. "I'm going to tell Dean on you." She glared at her sister, although I could see that she had a grin lurking on her lips.

A tall blond boy pushed his way out of the crowd that had surrounded us. "Uh, two questions," he said, looking just a little uncertain. "One, what were you going to tell on her about? And two, what _exactly_ is that?" Oddly enough, the longer he looked at me, the less worried he seemed to be.

"Dean!" Vicky more or less leaped into his arms and gave him a smacking kiss. "Dean, I'd like you to meet Wyvern, the newest member of New Wave. Wyvern, meet Dean Stansfield, the best-looking guy in Arcadia, and my boyfriend."

 _Because of_ _ **course**_ _she's dating one of the richest kids in town._ I'd never met Dean before, but I knew of the Stansfields. They were one of Brockton Bay's high-society families, along with the Christners and the Anders'. I eyed him, not exactly jealously, because there was no way in hell I'd even have a _chance_ with a guy like that. But I _was_ feeling a certain amount of envy, because there was no way in hell _I'd_ even have a chance with a guy like _that_.

"Wait," one of the other kids crowding around said. "This is your new _teammate?_ You've got a _dinosaur_ as a teammate?" His voice sounded more incredulous than disbelieving.

I turned and gave him a hard stare. He stepped back a little; apparently, as a wyvern, I was really well equipped to give menacing looks. Perhaps it was the crest … or maybe the teeth.

"No, Carlos," Vicky said, almost wearily. "Weren't you _listening?_ She's a _wyvern,_ which is a type of dragon. _Not_ a dinosaur. Sheesh, people, crack a book sometime." She pointed at me. "She's wearing a costume and everything."

A red-headed boy decided to stick his oar in at this point. "Okay, so she's a wyvern, which is a type of dragon. Where did you even get a dragon _from?_ And what's the point in dressing her up in a costume? It's not like she'll be going out fighting crime with you, right?"

"Because she's not just a dragon." It was Dean. "She's a Changer, right? This is just one of her forms?" He was still staring at me a little oddly, but I didn't care. Giving him an affirmative chirp, I followed up with a nod.

" _Oh,"_ the redhead said, his eyes open wide with realisation. "So when you say she's your teammate, you actually do mean that she's your _teammate."_

Amy had been quietly standing by, not saying a word. I suspected that she preferred it this way. But now she marched up to the redhead and grabbed him by the collar. He was a few inches taller than her, but she hauled him down until her mouth was level with his ear.

"Yes, Dennis," she said, the tone of her voice clearly indicating that what little patience she had was rapidly eroding. "She really _is_ a wyvern, and she really _is_ our teammate. And Dean's right; she's a Changer. Now, did you have any _other_ stupid questions you wanted to get out of the way?"

He paused for a moment, then opened his mouth. She yanked on his collar. "Any questions to do with Wyvern, right here, right now?" I was a little surprised by the suppressed anger in her tone, but it certainly did the job; he closed his mouth again.

"Okay, gotcha," the boy called Carlos said. "So when did this happen, Vicky? Yesterday? I remember you blowing out of school during home room, and you didn't get back all day."

"Yeah, there was kind of an incident with Wyvern, here," Vicky told him. "I had to get it sorted out. The Protectorate kind of got involved, but Wyvern ended up joining New Wave." She gave the assembled crowd a beaming smile. "I'm sorry, folks. I can't tell you any more. Cape business."

"Okay, sure, but why bring her to Arcadia anyway?" asked the redhead. He looked apologetically at Amy. "I'm sorry, but it's a legitimate question. It's not like she can really do any schoolwork."

Amy sighed as she released Dennis' collar. "I'll get this one, Vicky. Guys, Wyvern is new to her powers. She's joined New Wave in her Changer form, but the public's probably not ready for a fire-breathing dragon flying unattended around the city. So we're bringing her to school so she can get used to people staring at her, and so that people will pass the word around. Wyvern is one of the good guys." She flushed a little as everyone stared at her. "Well, it's _true."_

" … wait." Dean raised a finger in the air.

Vicky gave him an odd glance. "What?"

"Uh … did Amy say _fire-breathing?"_ Dean's eyes flicked from Vicky to me. "Wyvern can actually breathe _fire?_ You're not just pulling our chains?" He sounded as though he really wanted this to be true. Which it was, although I wasn't about to demonstrate right then.

The grin that crossed Vicky's face was composed of pure smugness. "She sure can. You should see what she did to Armsmaster's halberd."

"Why, what did she do?" This was the red-headed boy, his expression composed of equal parts interest and cautious anticipation.

"Glory Girl!" Amy's voice was sharp. "Remember what Brandish said about that!" I winced; Mrs Dallon had been rather explicit about the need for discretion. _We don't need anyone knowing about that particular confrontation,_ she had stated. I had agreed with her, although I didn't need to worry about spilling the beans, given that my Wyvern form was non-verbal.

I wasn't _mute,_ however; turning my head, I chirped in agreement with Amy's words.

"Did she just … _agree_ with you?" asked Carlos. "Oh, wait. Of course she did. Sorry, Wyvern," he offered. "I'm not used to talking to people who look like they belong on the set of the next _Jurassic Park_ movie." His face flushed dark with embarrassment. "I'm gonna stop talking now, before I make an even bigger idiot of myself."

Vicky smirked. "Well, that _would_ be kind of hard to do." She tilted her head toward me. "You ever been inside Arcadia before?"

I shook my head. _Nope. Drove past a few times, though._

"Come on, then." She strode onward while I did my best to keep up. It was useful that people moved aside, often with some haste, when they saw me. Less helpful was the fact that I wasn't actually good at moving fast on my hind legs. Fortunately, however, the wyvern body had a work-around. Using my 'elbows' as makeshift forelegs, I was able to maintain a reasonable pace, even though it probably looked ridiculous.

"Hey!" It was Dennis, behind us. "I want to hear about what happened to Armsmaster's halberd!"

Amy caught up with us, breathing slightly faster than normal. "Nice going, Vicky."

The blonde looked over at her sister, her expression irritated. "Hey, it just slipped out. Think he'll figure it out?"

"Hope not," Amy said, her lips tightening a little. "We both know it puts her secret identity at risk."

Vicky nodded. "Right." She turned toward me. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to let it out, but it _is_ an awesome story."

I rolled my eyes and gave her an irritated squawk. This was only partly because of her faux pas; the rest of it was because she was walking so fast.

"I _said_ I was sorry," she muttered. With a worried expression, she turned back to Amy. "Do you think he'll start bugging, uh -" She coughed, then cleared her throat. "- you or me about it?"

Amy shook her head, her lips set in a straight line. "How can he _not?_ You know what that boy's like when it comes to things like that."

At that moment, the bell went, causing me to raise my head in surprise. At Winslow, they made use of the geriatric PA system to transmit the sound of a siren around the school; the unspoken joke was that more kids in the school would react to the sound of a siren than a bell. At Arcadia, it was a proper bell; clear, crisp and brassy.

"Well, that's the home-room bell," Vicky said with some relief. "See you at lunch, Ames?"

The brunette shook her head. "Sorry. Field trip with Mr Jankowitz, for History. We're visiting the Isaac Lord Memorial and the museum."

I was a little envious at that; I rather liked the Brockton Bay Local History Museum, but the last time I'd gone had been years ago, before Mom passed. And the closest that Winslow had to field trips was when one student or another was arrested and taken down to the precinct house.

Apparently, Vicky didn't share my opinion of it. "Oh, well. Your loss. Come on, uh, Wyvern."

"This isn't over yet," Amy said as I started to follow Vicky off down the corridor. "If Dennis says anything, you're gonna be in _so_ much trouble."

 _Says anything to_ _ **who**_ _?_ The puzzle occupied me all the way to Vicky's home room. It wasn't like he could get answers out of _me._

* * *

" - Wyvern," Vicky said patiently. "That's because her Changer form _is_ a wyvern." She pointed at my wings. "See how her arms are her wings? That's the difference between a wyvern and a dragon."

The group gathered around us in the English classroom nodded or made various noises of assent, though I doubted that they'd followed all of that. Most of them seemed to be more worried that I might bite them or something.

"So, it, uh, she, really breathes fire?" asked one of her classmates. "I mean, actual fire?" He looked down at me; at that moment, I was resting back on my tail, which allowed me to keep my head up without causing my neck to start aching. "Because biologically speaking, unless her diet allows her to build up concentrations of flammable gas -"

I snorted with amusement. Vicky echoed me, but then she actually burst out laughing. "Oh, my god. No, seriously. Just no. Breathing fire is a _power_ for her."

"Oh, right," he said. "So how -" He looked around, breaking off as the door opened and the teacher entered.

"Sorry, all," he said, not even looking around as he headed for his desk. "Last-minute teacher conference. Apparently there's a new cape in school, and she's fairly … what the _hell_ is _that_ thing?"

I covered my eyes with my wing. It looked like this was going to be happening a _lot_. It also didn't raise my expectations of being treated as 'normal' if the teachers were going to be blurting out stuff like that.

"Mr Robertson," Vicky protested, "this is New Wave's new recruit, Wyvern. She's a _person,_ not a 'thing'." The hurt in her voice warmed me. _She cares. She actually_ _ **cares.**_

I lowered my wing just in time to see the look on the teacher's face. As far as I could tell, it was somewhere between _you have to be shitting me_ and _how long till retirement, again?_ "Wait … _this_ is your new teammate, Glory Girl?"

"Yes, sir," she said promptly. I added an agreeable chirp, and nodded.

He closed his eyes, as if hoping that I was a passing hallucination. Opening them once more, he slowly shook his head. "Well, Vice Principal Howell _said_ she was likely to be distinctive … I'm going to have to congratulate her on a truly masterful use of understatement."

"I don't know about that, sir," Vicky said; I could tell she was trying to hide a smile. "Wyvern hasn't actually met the Vice Principal yet. Mom said she was going to make a call before she went to work."

He shook his head again. "Well, I can tell that it's not going to be a _boring_ day today. Everyone, take your seats, and have your homework ready on your desk … ah, yes, Miss Dallon?" From the tone of his voice, I figured he knew what she was going to say next.

Vicky grimaced, just a little. "Uh, sir, I had to go and deal with matters yesterday, that kind of resulted in meeting and recruiting Wyvern, here. So I … kind of … didn't get the homework?"

Mr Robertson sighed. "Very well. It's clearly obvious that you're not making it up." He looked at me over his glasses. "Though I have no idea what to do in this specific circumstance. Miss, uh, Wyvern, can you just do me a favour and not disrupt the class too much?"

I nodded and gave him another agreeable chirp. A vaguely pained expression crossed his face, as if he were uncertain about his own mental stability.

"Thank you." He turned back to Vicky. "I won't report you this time, but this must not happen again. So I'll be assigning you extra homework tonight, to make up for it. Superhero or no, a good education is absolutely essential in this day and age." He seemed to have recovered from his surprise as he strode back up toward his desk. "Now, if those of you who have actually _done_ the homework can pass it forwards, I'll be collecting it."

 _ **Extra**_ _homework? Ouch._ I shot Vicky my best sympathetic look. She shrugged in return, looking resigned. I got the impression that this was not an unknown situation for her.

 _Oh, well. At least me being here saved her from more trouble._ I settled down to watch and learn as Mr Robertson began to call the roll.

* * *

 **Glory Girl**

* * *

"So all through the class, he keeps sneaking Wyvern glances, like he thinks she's about to jump up and attack him." Vicky grinned at the memory, then took a bite of her burger. Beside her, Taylor-as-Wyvern rolled her eyes, apparently just as unimpressed with the English teacher as Vicky had been.

"So what happened then?" asked Dean. His eyes went from Taylor to Vicky and back again. "I get the impression that there's more to the story."

"Well, Wyvern _may_ have decided to mess with his head, just a little," Vicky allowed, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Every time he looked away from her, she changed posture. She's really good at moving quietly if she has to." It had been funny as _fuck_. The changes had been minor to begin with, then more and more blatant. And every time he'd looked at her, Wyvern's eyes had been fixed on him. Robertson hadn't quite run screaming from the room, but he'd been more than a little unnerved by the time class ended. And he'd forgotten to give Vicky the extra homework, so that was a win too.

"So what _was_ that you said earlier about Armsmaster's halberd?" Dennis put in, his flaming red hair in disarray. He looked for all the world as if he'd been obsessing over the question since class started. "What did she do to it? Did she steal it and bury it?"

Vicky rolled her eyes. "No, and stop asking about it. I'm not going to tell you, because it's not something that needs to get out." She gave the importunate Ward a medium glare. _So don't go asking Armsmaster about it, either._ "What happened was between Wyvern and Armsmaster, and nobody else needs to know about it."

Dennis held up his hands, the very picture of injured innocence. Vicky would have been taken in, except that she knew the boy, and didn't trust him an inch not to do something that he thought was funny. Such as declare his name as 'Clockblocker' in front of a live TV interview.

"I get it, I get it," he assured her. "But, you know, it's easier to keep a secret if you know what it is that you shouldn't be talking about." He tried his best to give her puppy-dog eyes, but he just didn't have the wherewithal to pull it off. It didn't help that his mouth kept trying to curl into a grin.

"You know what Benjamin Franklin said about secrets?" Vicky asked, leaning across the table toward the redhead. Lowering her voice, she made the question sound conspiratorial.

Dennis looked puzzled. "Uh, no. What did he say?" Out of his line of sight, Carlos's eyes opened with sudden realisation. Beside her, Taylor started snickering, wyvern-style, which sounded positively creepy. _She's heard this one, too._

Vicky locked her eyes with the Ward's. _"Three can keep a secret,"_ she quoted, _"if two of them are dead."_ Right on cue, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Taylor lean forward as well and bare her teeth. They were very sharp and very white, positively _gleaming_ in the overhead lighting.

"Whoa, hey, let's keep this friendly, huh?" Dennis backpedalled so hard he nearly fell out of his chair. "I'm really not all that invested in knowing about Armsmaster or his halberd. In fact, what halberd? I've never even heard of such a thing. No idea what you're talking about."

By the time he finished babbling, both Carlos and Dean were chuckling. Carlos turned to Vicky. "Any chance she can hang around with us for a while after school? I've never seen anyone shut Dennis up so effectively before."

"Hmm, might not be such a great idea," Dean said seriously. "You _know_ Missy will be there. And as adorable as she is, how do you think she'll react to Wyvern? Be honest, now."

Vicky began to giggle, imagining the scene, as Carlos and Dean both eyed Wyvern gravely. Taylor, for her part, obviously had no idea what they were talking about; she glanced at Vicky with a questioning chirp. Putting her hand over her mouth, Vicky managed to muffle her giggles, though she was in no state to actually answer the unspoken question.

"Well, I think the first sign that Missy has seen Wyvern will be a high-pitched squeal," Carlos decided; his mock-serious tone was spoiled only slightly by the grin tugging one corner of his mouth upward. "And then I think she'd shriek _'Dragon!'_ at the top of her lungs."

"Even though she's actually a wyvern," Vicky managed, just as Taylor flared her crest in irritation.

"Well, of _course,"_ Dean agreed, the grin growing on his face. "And then I think Wyvern would find herself being glomped by a force of nature masquerading as a thirteen year old girl."

"Demanding a dragon ride," Carlos forced out, before he started laughing in earnest. By rights, he should've fallen off his chair, especially when Taylor squawked angrily and nudged him in the ribs with her … wrist? Major wing joint, anyway. "Sorry," he amended, wiping tears from his eyes. "Wyvern ride."

"Pretty sure that Wyvern isn't actually built to ride on," Vicky pointed out. "Even if she was big enough. Which she isn't." Taylor, apparently not on board with the idea of giving rides, nodded vehemently in agreement.

"But they'd look so _cute,_ posing together," Dennis put in. Vicky had to admire his fortitude.

He wasn't wrong, though. Art class had come after English. Mr Francesci had adapted to the idea of having a real life wyvern in his classroom much more readily than Mr Robertson had. He'd even been aware of the difference between wyverns and dragons, which Vicky supposed that she shouldn't really be surprised at.

Taylor had ended up posing for the class, something to which she had taken to rather more readily than Vicky had expected. It seemed that in her wyvern form, shyness was not something she suffered from. Francesci had asked – almost begged, in fact – Vicky to bring Wyvern back at some point so that he could render her in oils, something that had surprised Vicky. If she was any judge, Taylor wasn't sure what to think of it either. It was definitely something different.

"And I can guarantee _nobody_ would bother Missy when they were out and about, either," Dean agreed. "I mean, wow, those teeth." He paused for a moment. "And does she actually breathe fire?"

Vicky rolled her eyes. _"Everyone_ asks that, and yes, it's true. She really does breathe fire." W _hen you see it, you won't be asking twice,_ she thought with amusement.

At that moment, Carlos' phone went off; a moment later, so did Dean's and Dennis'. That was the first intimation that Vicky had that something was wrong. Carlos got his phone out first, and answered it, just as Vicky's phone pinged with a text from Amy.

She read it, a cold feeling crawling down her back.

 _ **At museum. Merch & ABB clashing. We're in the middle. Come quick. Bring Wyvern.**_

 _Amy would be smart enough to silence her phone._ She tapped out a quick reply. _**On way. Hold on.**_

Shoving her phone away, she stood up abruptly. "We've got to go. See you guys around?"

Carlos nodded, already putting his own cell phone back in his pocket. "Yeah. Got stuff to do."

 _I just bet you do._ She had no doubt that she'd see the Wards on the scene. But right now … "Come on, Wyvern."

Taylor had obviously picked up that there was _something_ wrong, but even though she was mostly in the dark, she didn't hesitate to follow. Which was good, because Vicky wasn't waiting around.

Her priorities were simple. _Costume up. Go and save Amy._

And God help _anyone_ who got in her way.

* * *

End of Part Eleven


	12. Chapter 12

**Wyvern**

* * *

Part Twelve: Bugging the Dragon

* * *

 _[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]_

* * *

 **Wyvern**

* * *

I let out a screech as Victoria opened her locker. The blonde was moving fast enough to accidentally rip the door clean off though to her credit, she hadn't actually done that yet. Reaching into the metal box—I still had unpleasant memories of _my_ locker—Vicky grabbed a familiar-looking set of folded clothing, with a tiara on top. Irritated at being ignored, I screeched again.

"What?" Vicky whipped around to face me. "Amy's in trouble. Whatever it is, can it wait?" Her aura pulsed back and forth, making me feel almost palpable waves of fear interspersed with saccharine levels of adoration. Fortunately, the latter didn't last long enough to trigger my change back. Even if they could, given my current agitated mindset.

This was the huge problem with the wyvern form; specifically, my inability to communicate in any meaningful way. Right now, the only messages I could get across with ease were 'yes', 'no' and 'I have lots of sharp teeth, so don't mess with me'. Anything more required time that I just did not have. Unfortunately, the message I was trying to get across was _you can fly a lot faster than me, so I'd better start right now, but I have no idea where you're going._ Hoping against hope that Vicky would figure it out, I reached out with my wingtip and traced the letter 'W' on the floor.

"What?" Vicky stared at the letter, then up at me. "What's a 'W' supposed to mean? Why am I costuming up? Who are we going to save? You _know_ all that." She lofted off the ground, preparatory to flying down the hallway—which I was almost _certain_ was forbidden within the grounds of Arcadia—but I spread my wings to block her way, letting out another screech. This one was louder and more forceful than before, and included more sharp teeth. _Pay attention to me._ Again, I traced the letter 'W' on the floor.

"What the fuck's gotten into you?" Vicky seemed about to barge past me anyway, then paused. "W …. um … who, when, where, why—" She stopped as I let out yet another screech before waddling awkwardly backward a step on my digitigrade legs. "Um, back? Back! Why … where! Fuck, I'm an idiot. You want to know _where_ she is." I nodded and let out my most encouraging chirp. "Isaac Lord Museum. You know where that is?"

 _Finally._ I nodded enthusiastically, then turned and scuttled off down the hallway. My clawed feet scrabbled at the plastic floor tiles and my 'elbows' ached slightly from thumping against the floor, but I still managed a fair turn of speed. Students scattered out of my way, whether from courtesy or fear I wasn't sure. _Just so long as they actually get out of the way._

The front doors slid open in front of me, and I burst out into the courtyard. A van with PRT markings was just pulling up at the gates, but I ignored it. Spreading my wings, I leaped into the air, beating them strongly for altitude. As I passed over the outer wall, I saw an armoured man get out of the van, his helmet faceplate tilted up toward me. _I suppose he doesn't see a wyvern fly overhead every day of the week._

Perhaps it was the urgency of the matter, but I felt no strain on my muscles as I pushed myself to fly faster and faster. While I hadn't known Amy for long—only a few hours less than I'd known Victoria, after all—the occasionally-snarky healer was someone I had decided I liked having as a friend. This was quite apart from the fact that she was Victoria's sister. The idea of her being put in danger by a bunch of gangsters and drug dealers made me … angry. Very angry. _They're not going to hurt her if I've got anything to say about it._

I'd spent my entire life in Brockton Bay and I liked to think I knew the city fairly well. The Isaac Lord Museum was a place I knew rather better than that; Dad had a fondness for local history and he'd dragged me along to the place about once a year until I left middle school. Based around the life and exploits of the man after whom Lord Street and Lord's Port was named, it wasn't particularly fancy or upmarket. Isaac Lord was one of the pioneers who had opened up the Brockton Bay region for settlement, so his name was well-known in the local area, but not so much anywhere else. As such, the museum had been gradually declining in the last few years, subsisting mainly on donations from local residents and a few patrons of cultural history.

Fortunately, it wasn't all that far from Arcadia as the crow—or the wyvern—flew. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do when I got there, except for the broad strategy; chase off the gangsters, save the innocents, make sure Amy was okay. If that involved scaring the living bejeebers out of a few dozen low-lives, or even inflicting minor first-degree burns on a few of them, I didn't mind. First-degree burns were survivable, after all, and would make the experience all the more memorable. And if me being memorable meant they wouldn't try this shit again in a hurry, then I intended to be as memorable as _fuck._

I was about halfway there when I saw the flying form in front of me. For a second I thought it was Victoria, and wondered _how the hell did she get ahead of me?_ Then I got closer and realised it wasn't her. For a start, the figure was wearing rust-red armour. And of course, there was the whole 'big muscular guy' thing. He was travelling on the same course I was, which indicated that this was either a huge coincidence or he was also going from Arcadia to the fight at the Isaac Lord Museum.

By the time I figured that out, I was almost up alongside him; he turned his head to stare at me. I figured it out just before he spoke; this was _Aegis,_ of the Wards. He was their only innate flyer, as far as I knew, though there was footage (mainly shown on the PHO boards) showing Kid Win zipping around on a flying skateboard. And falling off of it too, which made for much more entertaining footage.

I wasn't sure what was going to happen next, but nothing was going to stop me from going to save Amy. Whatever he did or said, I was going to basically ignore. Amy's welfare was more important. Besides, it looked as though I could fly faster than him. Which seemed odd, seeing that Vicky could fly faster than me, but who was I to argue? Maybe he'd gotten his version of bullshit no-effort wingless flight from the dollar store.

As he turned to look at me, I made a private bet with myself. Either he'd say _what the hell are you,_ with or without a panicked scream, or he'd decide I was an animal and treat me accordingly. After all, that was what most people I'd met in wyvern form had done. It was actually kind of depressing.

"Oh, hey," he said. "You're, uh, Wyvern, aren't you? Armsmaster briefed us on you."

 _Or he could just say hi._ For some reason, I hadn't considered that possibility. I let out a friendly chirp and nodded my head. It was nice to meet another parahuman who didn't consider me a dangerous monster. In fact, it was nice to meet another _person_ who didn't consider me a dangerous monster.

"Yeah, he said you were nonverbal," Aegis noted. "Also that you could breathe fire. Please don't kill anyone with fire, okay?"

Now I was just plain surprised, though I really shouldn't have been. Armsmaster had passed on what he'd learned about me, and Aegis had actually _listened?_ Did this mean I wouldn't have to beat him up until he paid attention to me? This revolutionary concept went against every comic book I'd ever read, not to mention most of my real-world experience to date.

Unsure of what else to do, I gave him a toothy grin and a shrug. I could see that my conversational inputs were going to be fairly limited, unless he asked me some extremely specific leading questions. Fortunately, we were going in the same direction and I was pretty sure he was on my side. The trouble was, I had no way of articulating _Panacea's in trouble and I'm trying to save her_ without either landing or carrying out some remarkably improbably charades in mid-air.

"Wyvern! There you are! Oh, hi, Aegis. Sorry, can't stay to chat. My sister's in the middle of that gang fight, and I'm gonna get her out."

 _Or Vicky could tell him. That works, too._ I looked around and let out a screech of welcome as Glory Girl swept up between us.

"You ready to go toast some gang butt?" Vicky gave me a remarkably vicious grin. For a human teenager, her teeth looked almost as sharp as mine. "I figure if you fold your wings, I can give you a lift."

That … actually sounded like it could work. I began to nod vigorously, then paused, remembering the meeting of the previous night. Mrs Dallon and Dad had agreed that we could go crime-busting so long as we had a chaperone. Preferably a flyer. While 'but Amy was in trouble' could _possibly_ serve as a good excuse for going in two-fisted, the fact was that we had a ready-made chaperone right there.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I pulled one of my patented snap barrel-rolls, ending up on Aegis' back. This was obviously something he _hadn't_ been briefed about—probably because Armsmaster hadn't observed me in flight—and he yelped in surprise as my prehensile feet latched on to the heavy belt he was wearing. "Wait, what are you doing?" he shouted. "Glory Girl, call her off!"

I had to say this about Vicky; she wasn't slow on the uptake. Quite possibly, she'd been aiming to violate the terms of the agreement by omission— _sorry, Mom, but it totally slipped my mind, and Ames was in trouble—_ but I'd dragged it out into the open. So to speak.

"Aw _crap,"_ she said, even as she facepalmed. "Okay, _fine._ Aegis, we're gonna need you to stick with us. Mom's decided we need a minder, and you're the closest thing we've got at the moment."

"Sure, fine," he said; for a flying Brute, he certainly sounded more than a little nervous. "But can you make the nice fire-breathing lizard girl let me go, please? I don't know what she's doing back there, and I'm not sure I want to."

"I'd love to," she replied sweetly. "But she's got the right idea. Say, if your spine dislocates, you'll get over it, won't you?" As she spoke, she swung up behind me. I crouched, clenched my claws through Aegis' belt, and furled my wings.

"Yeah, but wh _aaaaaahhhhhhh!"_ he hollered as she wrapped her arms around me and piled on the pace. From the pitch of his voice, I suspected that I might've been inadvertently giving him an armour-wedgie but as Victoria had said, he'd get over it.

Even with me and Aegis as dead weight, Vicky managed to accelerate to speeds that I could only normally reach in a dive. I flicked my nictitating membranes across my eyes and left them there; while they made things a little blurry, I could still see where we were going. It helped that Aegis had stopped struggling and stretched himself out in an effort to be more aerodynamic. I appreciated the effort.

"It's up ahead!" Vicky called out. "Aegis, stay with Wyvern! She's the rookie here!" As she let me go, I reflexively spread my wings and released the grip I had on Aegis' belt.

"What are you going to be doing?" asked Aegis. "My orders were to observe but not engage until backup arrived." I could kind of see his point. The gangs were definitely out in force today, with Roadhog and her crew occupying one street and the ABB in the other. The museum was on the corner where these two streets converged, and the intersection was by now a no-go zone. Unfortunately, it would only be a matter of time before some overly-sneaky gangbanger decided to go _through_ the museum to ambush their rivals on the other side. Unless, of course, they already had.

"Saving Amy," Vicky stated through clenched teeth. "And oh, look." She pointed at me. "Backup." That seemed to be all the words she was willing to use, as the last one was punctuated by her abrupt departure.

Aegis watched her dive toward the museum, then turned to me. "Okay, um … have you done this much before?" Implicit in his question was the subtext _I'm not being paid enough to try and stop her, and I don't think I could even if I was._ I kind of sympathised with him; Victoria Dallon was a force of nature unto herself. While there were probably things on Earth Bet that could make her reconsider, once you got past the Endbringers and the Triumvirate they'd have to be few and far between.

Irritated, I shook my head. _You'd think Armsmaster would've covered that bit as well. Unless he's been holding back on my trigger details so as to keep my identity secret …. huh. Maybe he's not such a dick after all._ But I was still irritated, if only because Vicky had ditched me so I could watch Aegis' back while she went to find Amy. Down below, there was a distant _crunch_ ; going by the brand-new hole in the roof of the museum, Vicky hadn't bothered finding a window or door. _Well, that's definitely her, all right._

"Um, okay." Aegis seemed to come to a decision. "We need to maybe disperse some of these gang guys before they get the idea to take cover. Or hostages. Follow me and act scary." Looking a lot less sure about what he was doing than Vicky had, he dived toward the street below where Roadhog's Merchants were tussling with Inago's ABB. I followed, not because of anything he'd said, but because Vicky was trusting me to not let him get killed.

He swooped down over the street, about a dozen feet over the heads of the gang members. With my superior speed and manoeuvrability, I was able to match my speed and course to his while staying alongside him. _Follow him, my scaly wyvern ass._ As per his suggestion—I certainly wasn't taking it as an _order—_ to act scary, I opened my jaws wide and let out the loudest screech I could pull off. From the way Aegis recoiled sideways, he hadn't been expecting that.

Nor had the people beneath us. With matching screams, they fell away before us, some of them not even looking around before scrambling for safety. A few brave souls fired guns at us but they must have missed us altogether, because I didn't feel anything hit me. Aegis, of course, was wearing armour and he was a Brute anyway.

Our path led us to the intersection, where the front-line capes were clashing. Roadhog's latest mechanical abomination, looking like the illegitimate offspring of a Mack truck and a centipede, was attempting to climb all over what looked like an honest-to-goodness giant robot. I'd never seen a robot of this type in Brockton Bay before, which made me wonder who the ABB had recruited as a Tinker. _Inago's been holding out on us._

"Whoa, hey!" Aegis pulled up in a steep climb to avoid the oversized combatants. I couldn't see the rest of the ABB and Merchant capes, but I knew they had to be around here somewhere. Inago wasn't one to watch from the back lines, and while Skidmark was no longer alive, Roadhog still had a few capes to call on. The word on the street was that he'd died when she backed up over him with one of her vehicles; the sixty-four million dollar question on the PHO boards was 'accident or assassination?' Whichever one it was, she'd renamed herself (from 'Squealer', believe it or not), taken over the team, and started a program of active recruitment to bring the Merchants into the big leagues.

One of the large picture windows in the side of the museum exploded outward, and Vicky came flying out, backward. A massive cloud of bugs poured out after her, and just like that, I knew exactly where the leader of the ABB was. Also, from the way Vicky's limbs flopped bonelessly, she was in a bad way. Twisting in mid-air, I swooped down with all the speed at my command. I had less than a second to catch her before she hit the ground. Normally I wouldn't have worried, but _something_ had disabled her, and I didn't know if it had gone through her invulnerability or if her invulnerability was down.

There were still some gang members on the street when I came back through. They didn't bother trying to shoot at me a second time, which showed that they _could_ learn after all. I paid them no heed at all, straining forward with my wings beating furiously. It was going to be close; too close. _Far_ too close. I wasn't going to be able to catch her and still pull up, so I did the next best thing.

A fraction of a second before she would've hit the curb on the other side of the street, I caught up with her. Wrapping my wings around her body, I curled the rest of myself into as close to a ball as I could manage. The impact was massively bruising; we hit the curb, then bounced over it and demolished a mailbox. Loose letters went everywhere as we kept going. I closed my eyes as we smashed into a storefront in a hail of broken glass. After we rolled to a stop, I cracked an eyelid to see what was going on. Pieces of glass were lying everywhere, but nothing seemed poised to fall on us quite yet. For a mercy, it appeared that the storefront wasn't in use right at that moment.

"Shit, are you guys all right?" Aegis swept into the store then crouched down beside us, heedless of the broken glass. I ignored the pointless question and unwrapped myself from around Victoria. Despite the fact that every inch of my body was sending me urgent messages about not doing that again _ever_ , I reserved the hiss of horror for when I saw Vicky's face.

She looked like she'd been on the receiving end of a pile-driver, repeatedly. One eye was swollen shut, and it looked like her jaw was broken. Blood was leaking from both nostrils, and lumps and welts covered every free inch of her skin. Worst of all, her mouth was wide open and she was trying to breathe but from the sound of the choked gasps, nothing was going in.

"Shit!" Aegis stared at her. "She's choking." He grabbed her jaw and pulled it open a little farther, then hooked two fingers into her mouth. When he pulled them out, I saw a couple of fat black bugs fall on to her face, then scuttle back toward her mouth. With a growl, I darted my head forward; my teeth clamped on to the bugs and I bit down hard. With a _pop,_ they dissolved into a bad-tasting gas. I shook my head in confusion. _What just happened?_

"It's Inago," Aegis muttered. "They're his bugs. She's got them in her lungs. She'll suffocate if we can't get them out." Taking a deep breath, he crossed one hand over the other and shoved down hard on her sternum. She coughed convulsively; bugs flew out of her mouth, but most of them buzzed straight back in on the inhale. I snapped at another one, just as Aegis tried to grab a few; at the last instant, I pulled back before I would've taken his hand off at the wrist. Or broken some teeth on his armour, whichever happened first.

Scrambling out from under Vicky's body, I chirped to get Aegis' attention, then nodded at Vicky. _Take care of her._ He stared up at me, his eyes wide behind his visor, as he prepared to repeat the chest compression. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

I didn't bother trying to explain. Turning, I lunged out through the broken storefront window. _Vicky's only got so much time, even with Aegis doing CPR. I've gotta fix this shit._ My wings spread wide as I took to the air, but I didn't fly too high. My target was just across the street, after all.

* * *

 **Panacea**

 **A Little Earlier**

* * *

Amy Dallon knelt on the floor of the museum in the middle of the timeline exhibit. This was where the teachers had made them gather when the shooting started, as the bulky stands actually provided cover from all sides. When the ABB had burst through, looking to ambush the Merchants, they had merely huddled up a little closer, on the principle that if they didn't look like a threat, the gangsters wouldn't bother them. That had worked, up to a point.

This point had come when Inago himself strode through the museum, his steel bug-mask gleaming in the overhead lights and the long black coat flaring behind him. He looked over the teachers, obviously dismissing them almost instantly. His gaze similarly raked over the students, and he pointed at the two Asian students in the group, beckoning them to come to him. Hesitantly, Chet and Kayla did so, and Amy's heart sank. Inago had already built a reputation for recruiting or killing off all the Asian gangs in the surrounding cities. She had no doubt he was about to make them an offer they couldn't refuse, as the old saying went.

"Leave them alone!" she had shouted, standing up. "Leave us all alone!" Guns were levelled at her, but Inago knocked them toward the ceiling; he, at least, recognised her. Recognised that hurting or killing Panacea would paint a huge target on the ABB's back. Of course, she realised a second or so later, it may not have been the smartest thing after all to reveal herself to him.

"I will leave them alone," the gang lord said in accented English. "You will heal my men." Raising a hand, he barked an order in some other language, and men scurried to obey.

"No," she'd told him, with a boldness she didn't feel. "I won't. You can't make me." _Go ahead,_ she dared him silently. _Touch me. I'll make you sorry you ever came to Brockton Bay._

Inago didn't hesitate. He reached out and grabbed the Asian girl by the throat. Her feet lifted from the floor and he began to squeeze; Kayla began to let out the most horrendous choking noises, her hands vainly pulling at his iron grip.

Amy's eyes widened. "No!" she shouted. "Stop! Don't kill her!"

The girl continued to choke and thrash, although her movements were becoming weaker. Inago ignored her, staring directly at Amy. "You will heal my men." His tone was implacable. _The sky is blue, water is wet, you will heal my men._

There was no way out of it. Even if she let Kayla die, there were dozens more in the class. She had no doubt but that he'd butcher his way through every last one of them if he had to, in order to get her to cooperate. "I'll heal your men," she said, hating the sound of surrender in her voice.

"Good." He opened his hand and Kayla fell to the floor, coughing and choking and clutching her throat. Amy wanted to go to her but she felt eerily certain that if she did, Inago would end the girl as an object lesson. _She's breathing. I'll heal her after all this is over._

After that, it had become a nightmare of one wounded man after another; bullet wounds, knife wounds, more bullet wounds. Amy _wanted_ to sabotage her own efforts in some way, but short of screwing with their brains, she couldn't think of a way to make it so that these men couldn't fight without alerting Inago of what she was doing. And all the while, she could _feel_ the accusing stares from her teachers and classmates, silently asking _why are you helping them?_

The crash as Vicky came in through the roof came as both a total shock and a welcome surprise. Her sister's aura swelled in response to her anger, causing the men with the guns to cower away from her. Vicky took advantage of this opening with vicious glee, punching out all three armed guards before they could react. Inago was the next to feel her wrath; her next blow sent him flying through a stand in a shower of rubble.

"Okay, Ames," Vicky said, landing next to her sister and extending a hand. "Let's get you—"

She didn't get any farther because a mass of black, buzzing bugs enveloped her, hiding her entirely from Amy's sight. Two of them alighted on Amy's hand and she instinctively tried to exert her power on them. Absolutely nothing happened; there wasn't even a life signal from them.

That was when Inago came out of the cloud of bugs, even more of them buzzing around him, and back-handed Vicky into an up-till-then unbroken display stand. The stand broke and Vicky started making horrific choking noises, her bug-covered arms clawing at her bug-covered face. Amy felt Vicky's aura flickering wildly as Inago strode over to her and smashed her to the floor in a single punch. His foot met her head on the way down, snapping it back so hard Amy thought Vicky may have fractured her spine. Reaching down, he picked Vicky up, her limp form dangling from his hand like a doll. The bugs began to leave her. As he reared back, Amy saw her face; her eyes were closed, blood running from her nostrils. Amy couldn't tell if she was dead or just unconscious.

When Inago threw her, Vicky flew through the air in a flat ballistic arc. She struck the plate glass window in the outside wall, shattering it and continuing on with barely any reduction in speed. Amy lost sight of her sister then. She wanted to scream and run after Vicky in the hope that she'd survived the brutal beating but she knew exactly what would happen to the other hostages if she did. Kneeling on the floor of the museum, she wrapped her arms around herself and wept for her heroic sister. _I'm so sorry, Vicky. So very sorry._

"You will heal my men." Inago's voice was as relentless as ever. She ignored him, clutching herself more tightly. Vainly, she tried to will away the emptiness that grew inside her, threatening to envelop her very soul. A sob was wrenched from her throat.

A scream jolted her attention back to the here and now. Raising teary eyes, she saw a cloud of bugs descending on the hostages, who were thrashing and rolling on the floor in an effort to get away from them. Inago stepped forward, as if there was a chance she would think someone _else_ could control such a swarm. "You will heal my men. Now."

The screech cut through the screams of the hostages like a knife through hot butter. In a totally unconscious reflex action, Amy threw herself flat. Terror twisted her guts into a knot as the sound grabbed every primitive atavistic instinct she had and yanked on it, hard. Looking up, she barely had time to register a red-and-gold blur before it was gone again. Something metallic hit the floor with a clatter, rocking back and forth slightly. She stared at it; it was Inago's mask.

* * *

 **Aegis**

* * *

 _Fuck, I'm losing her._ Aegis tried to compress Glory Girl's chest again, but the bugs were too far down her throat, filling her lungs. Her heartbeat was thin and thready now, her finger relaxed against the floorboards. He gritted his teeth and tried again, refusing to give up hope.

Suddenly, the breath whooshed out from her lungs; he caught a whiff of it, and started to cough at the acrid taste. Poising himself over her, he pushed down on her chest once more. This expelled more of the noxious gas, allowing her to inhale life-giving oxygen.

"Vicky!" he heard a familiar voice calling from outside. "Vicky! Oh god, where are you?"

"In here!" he called out, not pausing in his efforts. Glory Girl still wasn't out of the woods, but he wasn't going to let her die on his watch. He could hear the sounds of ongoing combat, but this was more important.

Panacea came scrambling in through the shattered window, moving carefully to avoid the shards of glass. "Vicky!" she nearly screamed. "Oh, god. Is she—?"

"She's alive," he assured her. "Just. There's some crap in her lungs—"

In the next instant, she was on her knees beside her sister, cradling Glory Girl's hand in hers. The blonde hero convulsed, inhaling deeply, then coughed. More acrid gas came out of her lungs, then Amy triggered another deep breath. And another.

 _Thank God._ Aegis slumped back against the wall. _She's going to be okay._

* * *

 **Wyvern**

* * *

We smashed our way out through the plate glass and into the open air. Immediately, I turned my muzzle skyward and tightened my grip on Inago's arm. I was going to make him _so very sorry_ for hurting my friend and frightening her sister. A fall from twenty thousand feet, I figured, would be a good start.

Inago, as it turned out, had other ideas. He wriggled and twisted, causing me to jink oddly in my flight, but he couldn't break my grip. That is, until the sudden weight fell on my back. That came as an unwelcome surprise, as did the blade across my throat. _Oni Lee, I presume._ As he tried to slice my neck open—it seemed that even my soft underbelly was proof against ordinary blades—I twisted my head around and snapped at him. Coppery-tasting blood filled my mouth as my teeth crunched through flesh and bone alike; the weight vanished once more. All except for an itch right in the middle of my back; a second too late, I realised that—

 _BOOOM_

I came to with wind rushing in my ears. As with the last time I'd been knocked out by an explosion, I found myself in human form. Unlike the last time, I was still in mid-air, falling. Inago had wriggled free while I was engaged with Oni Lee, and had presumably already hit the ground. My costume was flapping about me in a rather less than intact manner, but I wasn't even worrying about that. Looking down, I could see the blurry ground rushing up at me. And Inago—at least, I presumed it was him—watching as I fell to my death.

 _Not gonna fuckin' happen._ I took the surge of rage and rode it through the fastest Change I'd ever experienced. My wings spread and flapped mightily, catching me just yards above the ground. As I looked down at Inago, my jaws opened and I let out a screech of pure challenge. I found that I didn't _care_ about the Merchants or Roadhog. The ABB had threatened Vicky's sister, and Inago had tried to kill Vicky herself. They were going _down._

Inago opened his mouth and replied with a chittering screech that was nothing like mine. It was like the combined, concentrated sound of every biting, stinging insect I'd ever heard. As I watched, his mouth opened wider and wider, and mandibles began to push out from inside somewhere. By now, his eyesockets were filled with bulbous black masses. _Compound eyes,_ I guessed.

From his open mouth poured more of the bugs, swarming up toward me in an almost impenetrable cloud. I flapped my wings, gaining height. The bugs followed, until I had them right where I wanted them. Inhaling deeply, I released a long, rolling burst of flame. The cone blasted downward, overwhelming the upward-moving swarm and reducing them to nothing but immaterial ash. It also hit Inago, setting fire to his long-coat.

He didn't seem to be overly worried by the fire, even as the coat burned around him. I bared my teeth and prepared the cutting flame; if it could melt Armsmaster's halberd, it could surely fry Inago where he stood. Furling my wings, I dropped into a dive; while I could easily target him from higher up, the distance might attenuate the flame.

Again, I felt the weight on my back at just the wrong moment. However, this time I knew what to do. Altering my focus, I spat out an explosive fireball. I didn't spit it far, and it was quite short-fused; less than half a second later, it went off … just as I was passing it, with my unwelcome passenger on board. He screamed and fell off, his costume on fire. I didn't care; all my attention was focused on Inago.

When I saw the long dark shape covering his back, I began to wonder where he'd found another coat. My mistake was revealed a moment later when the dark wing-cases opened and long, gossamer wings emerged from just behind his shoulders. Chitinous plates had grown over most of his body by now, with a second set of arms emerging halfway down to his hips. He was getting more and more insectile by the moment, and this wasn't a good thing. If I wasn't much mistaken, he was also about nine feet tall by now.

My jaws opened wide and I let out a blue-hot cutting flame. It lanced toward Inago as I closed with him, but at the last minute, his wings started beating with an audible thrumming sound, lifting him out of danger. He vomited another swarm of faux bugs toward me; almost contemptuously, I toasted them with a wide-stream blast of flame. I'd hoped that my fire would also wreck his fragile-looking wings, but no such luck.

The preliminaries over, we closed with each other.

I let loose a stream of blue-white cutting flame, but he dodged it; while he wasn't as agile as me in the air, it seemed he wasn't exactly clumsy either. His bugs swarmed at me, but they couldn't get through my scales and any that got as far as my mouth were incinerated by the flames escaping from between my teeth. Some tried for my eyes, but my nictitating membranes sufficed to sweep them away and keep my vision clear.

We slammed together, clawing and tearing at one another. I had to use my wings to stay aloft, which meant that he had two sets of limbs to bring to bear as opposed to my single pair. On the other hand, my neck was much more flexible than his, and my teeth were a good deal sharper than his mandibles. Locked together, we tumbled over and over in the sky. I wanted to toast him, but if he dodged my blast as he had before, it could endanger others. So I tore at him with my claws and crunched his chitin between my teeth.

When he got his mandibles around my neck, I had a bad moment. I didn't have the leverage to pull free, and he was squeezing almost hard enough to cut off my air supply. Fortunately, they were only sharp on the tips and not the inner edges, giving me enough time to claw frantically at his abdomen with my foot-talons. For the most part they just slid off, though I may have cracked or broken one or two chitin plates.

Useless as my efforts may have been, they stirred a memory. I'd been trapped once before, and my claws had failed to help me there as well. But I'd gotten out of my locker in a different way. If I could do the same here … this would take some doing.

I latched on to his lower abdomen with my feet and pushed upward as hard as I could, jamming a thicker section of my neck up into the vice formed by his mandibles. This forced his mandibles apart slightly, and gave me more of a chance to take a deep breath. Capitalising on that, I twisted my neck almost into a knot, until my muzzle was nudging at the gap between myself and Inago. Then I spat out an explosive fireball.

The concussion left my ears ringing, even as we were flung apart. Though I knew I couldn't let up for an instant. Inago was too powerful for me to gradually wear down; I had to take him down hard and fast. The memory of what he'd done to Vicky flooded my mind with anger and resolve, and the last of the fuzziness disappeared.

Inhaling deeply, I launched another explosive fireball; it flew straight and true, detonating right next to him. Weathering the blast wave, I flew at him as he tumbled through the air. Not giving him time to get oriented, I sent another blast of fire at him. This one was perhaps the most intense cutting flame that I'd produced yet; he barely had a chance to dodge before it seared off one of his wings.

Out of control, unable to fly, he began to plummet toward the ground. Given what he'd endured at my hands—teeth, claws, whatever—I strongly suspected that he'd survive the impact. I didn't intend to make it that easy for him.

Arrowing in at him, I latched on with both feet. His compound eyes could convey no more emotion than the mandibles, but I thought I detected both fear and anger in him. I didn't care any more; opening my jaws, I lunged in and clamped them on to his right upper arm. He screamed, a high insectile screeching, as I clenched my teeth together and wrenched hard with my neck. Chitin crunched, bone popped, and flesh tore; I came away with his arm in my mouth.

As I spat it out, I realised the ground was getting very close indeed. As I released my grip on him with every intention of flying up and away, his other three arms latched on to me. I flapped once, but when I failed to break his grip, I went with Plan B. Grinning a very draconic grin, I treated him to an explosive fireball. _You'd really think he'd have learned by now._

The explosion was probably just as jarring as hitting the ground would have been. For my part, that is. My spread wings caught a lot of the blast, pushing me up and away. Inago, on the other hand, got slapped down hard, then stopped just as hard by the asphalt. I hovered over him, staring down at his crumpled body as it began to shrink and shed shattered chunks of chitin. It looked like he was unconscious at last. Still, he was dangerous as long as he lived. Better that he end now rather than—

"Wyvern, no!" It was Vicky's voice; a moment later, she flew in between me and Inago, holding her hand out toward me. I swallowed back the fire I'd been intending to unleash, a cutting flame that would've bisected Inago from crown to crotch. Vicky stared up at me with earnest, anxious eyes. "Wyvern, he's down. You can stop now. I'm _okay."_

I took a breath, and let myself relax just a little. Vicky looked so small, but she also looked … well, a little ruffled, but alive and well. Her tiara was missing, though that was no big deal—she'd shown me her collection of spares—and she looked like she'd been dragged through a hedge backward, but she was _alive._ I let out an inquiring chirp.

"Aegis kept me alive until his bugs vanished," she explained rapidly. "Then Ames got to us and made sure of it." She flew up and put her arms around my neck, which seemed to be wider than her whole body now. This seemed odd, but I couldn't figure out why. "You saved my life."

Gently, I came down for a landing beside where Inago lay. He was down to human form now; that is, a _lot_ smaller than me. Once my wings were no longer needed for flying, I used them to hug her in return, then let out a friendly chirp. _You're welcome._ Then, remembering the rest of the fight, I looked around.

The giant robot and the centipede/truck combo were no longer fighting. Nor were the gang members clashing. In fact, most of the latter seemed to have vacated the field of combat. I couldn't even see the Merchant capes. Glaring at the mechanical monstrosities, and by proxy the people driving them, I drew in a deep lungful of air. Letting Victoria go, I took up the same pose as when I'd confronted Armsmaster; crouched, jaws wide, wings spread. I didn't spit fire this time, however; these two hadn't attacked anyone I cared about. Instead, I went to let out a screech. What came out, however, was nothing less than a full-blooded roar. _Fuck off. When I want to deal with you, I'll come looking._ As the echoes died away, I could hear car alarms going off up and down the block.

They got the hint, breaking off from one another. The giant robot ignited some sort of flight pack and roared off over the rooftops, while the centipede-truck thing scuttled away down the street. Another glance around told me that the remaining gang members were likewise decamping at best speed. I didn't really blame them; after the show I'd put on with Inago, I really doubted they wanted to push me at that moment. _I'd_ not want to push me at the moment.

"Well, crap." Aegis' voice startled me for a moment. "I thought you were scary before." I swivelled one eye his way, noting that Panacea was standing beside him, and let my teeth show for a moment in my version of a grin. He grinned back and indicated where Roadhog and the giant robot had been. "I'm pretty sure they'll both be changing their underwear when they get back to base."

Vicky snickered, and I echoed her. The imagery _was_ kinda funny. She looked up at me, while leaning against my shoulder in a familiar fashion. "So, I'm gonna take a stab in the dark here and guess that you got kinda mad when you were fighting him?"

Twisting my neck, I looked down at myself. Compared to her, I realised, I _was_ kind of on the large side. At least twice as long as our car, I figured, and tall enough that even Aegis only came up to my lower chest. Nodding my head, I chirped in the affirmative, then shrugged. _Fighting someone like that, what can I do?_

"So wait, you don't _normally_ get this big?" Aegis looked up at me, with something approaching respect in his voice. "I guess you scale up according to the threat you're facing?" Looking down at Inago's unconscious body—still missing an arm—he nodded slowly. "Seeing how powerful he is, I'm kinda not surprised you got this big this fast."

"Can I see, please?" Amy stepped forward, hands twitching as she reached out toward me then pulled back again. "You're a _lot_ bigger than you and Vicky described. I mean, wow."

I gave her another wyvern-grin and an agreeable chirp, then extended a wing toward her. She took hold of it, her eyes widening as she stared at nothing. "Wow," she breathed. _"Wow._ Your whole system's reshaped itself on the fly to be more efficient at the larger size. I can't believe … wow. How _hot_ is your flame, now?"

I gave her a helpless shrug. Not only could I not talk, but I had zero idea about how to measure the heat of something that could melt concrete and slag Tinkertech weapons. All I knew was that it was hot _enough._ Also, I had no idea where the cone of flame had come from, but it had definitely been handy against Inago's weird bug-swarm.

"I got a better question." Vicky's grin was downright mischievous. "Where's your costume?"

The answer was simple: 'gone'. As the first PRT van screeched to a halt, I closed my eyes and covered my face with my wing.

This day was just getting better and better.

* * *

End of Part Twelve


End file.
